Andy Burnham has said he will continue donating 15% of his salary to local efforts, which he did for nine years as Mayor of Greater Manchester. He said he did so “to tackle homelessness” in Manchester…
Now he says he will this time be “donating to worthy local causes at the heart of our communities.” But only his MP’s salary will go to them…
An MP makes a measly £98,599 compared to the mayoral salary of £118,267. That means communities will receive only £14,789.85 from Andy compared to £17,740.05 they got before – a reduction of almost £3,000. He could announce that he would be donating 15% of his prime ministerial salary too – which would be an uplift…
Guido hears senior personnel in No10 are keen on resignation honours from Starmer. Just one problem with that…
In 2023 Starmer promised never to make a list of resignation honours – defying convention – because he was attacking Tory PMs for doing the same when they revolved out of the door of Downing Street. Once again the piety comes back to slap them in the face…
This week Starmer’s spokesman declined to rule out resignation honours, saying: “We’re getting ahead of ourselves.” A Downing Street source tells Guido that senior staff in the building – expected to go under Burnham – are “all testing how much Keir will stick to his promise about no resignation honours,” adding: “some of them fancy the ermine.” No doubt about that…
Guido has been examining what a Mahmoodian chancellorship would look like. An intriguing proposal from her top SpAd in 2021 suggested an economy-wide carbon tax…
The written-up briefings about Shabana Mahmood being desperate to stay in the Home Office are not necessarily accurate. Her own close fans often discuss how keen Burnhamites are for her to be Chancellor…
In September 2021 Josh Williams, soon to be heading up Labour Together, put forward this idea to fight climate change in the UK:
- Use a carbon tax or set a market price on emissions, in the form of either a flat tax per tonne or a limited number of tradeable pollution permits.
- Solve the regressive impact by returning the revenue to the public as a “carbon dividend” subsidy. Here he cites a 2017 Colorado State study where 9 in 10 of the poorest would gain a net $788 rather than lose out from such a redistribution…
- Solve the competitiveness problem (a unilateral tax just exports emissions and damages domestic firms) via a border adjustment. CBAM comes in in 2027…
- Phase it in and push for global co-ordination to advance a worldwide carbon price.
The moment this tax touched real households and real firms there would be massive pressure for exemptions. Anyone thought of agriculture, steel, cement, ceramics, glass, chemicals, aviation, fishing, remote rural houses, fuel-poor houses, energy-intensive SMEs, and strategic industries?
It is also more inflationary. This is why we don’t have a unified Carbon Tax…
Downing Street staff have been told that Andy Burnham won’t fire them all summarily on coming into government. Sighs of relief you can hear there from SpAds working out how to stay inside – it’s every man for himself…
A No10 source tells Guido: “We’re hearing Team Andy want at least some continuity, not least seeing as they don’t have 40 new SpAds at the ready for Number Ten.” During the by-election, Team Burnham discussed striking a balance and not wanting to make too many enemies with the fall of a SpAd guillotine…
That said, the consensus inside is that “none of the senior staff will stay.” Guido hears Starmer’s temporary Chief of Staff Vidhya Alakeson is making the case for herself, though…
Speaking at his speech on how to achieve “progressive capitalism” Wes Streeting fired a dig and Andy Burnham:
“Bond markets are not bond villains and fiscal rules matter.”
