Labour has quietly removed all merchandise featuring Keir Starmer from its party shop. Presumably it was flying off the shelves previously…
The ex-PM, ex-MP’s face used to be plastered all over the site. Leaflets, banners, posters, the lot. Whoever bothered to open their wallets for this stuff now owns collectors’ items…
Anyone with £20 burning a hole in their pocket can now splash it on a pack of 500 leaflets featuring a smirking Andy Burnham with “BRING BACK HOPE” emblazoned next to him. All hope was lost on last guy…
The Tories are giving it both barrels to John Healey over his decision to shift the goalposts on the government’s defence spending target. Shadow Defence Secretary James Cartlidge said today:
“With Russia ramping up its threats every day, the world has only got more dangerous since John Healey resigned two months ago, saying Labour’s current plan for 2.7 per cent on Defence would leave Britain ‘less safe’.
He urged Starmer to go to 3 per cent by 2030. Given he is now the Chancellor, it is extraordinary that he is backtracking on the very pledge which sealed the fate of the last PM and opened the door of Number 10 to Andy Burnham.
For over a year we have urged the government to go to 3 per cent by 2030, and Kemi repeatedly offered to work with Starmer to deliver it. He refused and paid the price – Burnham needs to do what Starmer could not and make the difficult decisions to fund 3 per cent.
Russia doesn’t work to Treasury timetables, and we can’t wait for a spending review to keep Britain safe.”
Robert Jenrick also laid into Healey’s claims that Burnham’s premiership is “continuity” Labour. Silly season is almost over. Healey is about to discover being Chancellor entails more than just ranking pub grub on TikTok…
An NEC source is calling it “a victory for the moderates”…
CLP Section
Elected Unopposed
Treasurer: Ruth Brady
BAME Representative: Carol Sewell
Disabled Representative: Emily Pomroy-Smith
Youth Representative
Elsie Greenwood – 2,421 (elected) Caspar Chatham – 930
Welsh Representative
Ann Jones – 1,943 (elected) Michael Antoniw – 1,828
Local Government Division (2 elected)
Claire Holland – 1,084 (elected) Peter Wheeler – 851 (elected) Jamie Green – 487 Elizabeth Dennis – 482
Nigel Farage has begun to flesh out Reform’s position against Andy Burnham’s government this morning. Opposition parties are dealing with a different beast to Starmer now…
On TalkTV with Jeremy Kyle the Reform leader said the economy was the number one issue:
“Can Andy Burnham turn around the economy? Because that’s the real question, and I don’t see it. I don’t see it. I don’t think turning around the economy would be easy for anybody. There is going to be a very big change of culture that is needed. I mean, you know, when one in seven are going on antidepressants, you’re basically telling one in seven that they’re victims. And if people are told they’re victims, they’re likely to think and act like victims.”
Farage added it was “too early to tell” if Burnham is a better PM than Starmer: “He’s a better communicator than Keir Starmer, but it’d be very hard not to be. Hey, look, he’s a better communicator. He’s got a nice friendly image. I get all of that, but he’s very – He’s a bit like Boris. He tells people what he thinks they want to hear. We can’t let out We can’t let out PC Harper’s killers early. That’s got to be stopped. Then say a week later it’s not going to be stopped.” Next week’s the deadline for Burnham’s fix on Harper’s killers…
The rumour consensus in Westminster is that No10 and Healey will use the upcoming Budget on 28 October to fly under the radar without major tax and spend proposals. As always policy will eventually have to follow big talk though…
Keir Starmer’s ex-chief of staff Sue Gray has given both barrels to her former colleagues in Number 10, claiming it was “unbearable” working in Starmer’s team and lamenting the briefings against her during her (brief) tenure in Downing Street. She told Ed Balls on the Political Currency podcast:
“Stories about supposedly trying to move Morgan McSweeney to the back of the building. Actually, that was a genuine … ‘I can’t believe so many of you are going to sit in this small room. Let’s find a better room for you.’ It just got to the point where you know everything you say, you feel somebody is recording it…
I talked to [Starmer] a couple of times about it, and I don’t really want to disclose individual conversations. But I was disappointed that not more was done because I think it could have been done… [the atmosphere was] definitely unbearable, particularly for me…”
Gray was one of the first major departures from Starmer’s catastrophic administration. She can probably take comfort in the fact that so many others followed…
Miserable new figures from the ONS show there are 18,000 fewer vacancies available than a year ago, with the lowest overall total since the pandemic. Unemployment sat at 4.9% in the three months to June. Small businesses have tightened their belts the most, cutting 8,000 openings, in the face of higher employment taxes and operational costs. The cost of Labour…
Meanwhile private sector pay growth slowed once again to 2.8%, yet the pubic sector saw annual wages up by 6.1%. Inflation stats are out tomorrow. It can always get worse…
Andy Haldane, Burnham’s recent adviser on the economy who has not taken up a No10 job, told Andrew Marr on LBC:
“The market now suspects that this is a traditional tax-and-spend socialist government with better TikTok videos…
imposing windfall taxes on oil & gas or on banks or upping capital gains tax would […] repeat the mistake that Rachel made […] The Achilles heel, the fiscal Achilles heel of this government thus far has been its unwillingness and/or inability to cut public spending.”