Speaking on the National paper’s podcast, Lara Bird also Lara Bird-Leakey, also Pyla Bird-Leakey, the new SNP MP for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, has complained about people pointing out her accent-switching. Oh no! Anyway…
She said it showed politics has ‘changed’:
“I did not expect so many people to to get riled up by my accent. And that sort of leads into the the second point which is no one was commenting on what it was that I had been saying. And one of the videos in particular I was talking about Gaza and I was talking about Palestine and I was talking about continued occupation and it was I think the video was just after the UK government had recognized the state of Palestine. And so I was discussing that in the round.
But when that video surfaced, not a single person commented on the actual substance of the video. It was all just on the way that I was presenting it and the way that I was speaking. And I think that speaks huge volumes as to the way that politics works nowadays, which is that actually it’s far more important how you’re saying something than actually what it is that you’re saying. And that changes politics, I think, quite drastically.”
Bird-Leakey is an English lawyer. She must cherish those quiet moments with her family when she can speak in her heretical Southern accent, away from prying ears…
Burnham’s style of government so far is encapsulated here:
The ‘bursary’ will prevent those situations where, when Universal Credit is claimed for children under 18, parents lose out on cash if their kids go into apprenticeships. The total cost of the policies is up to £1 billion. Fiscal pressure only going one way…
The Education Secretary Lucy Powell is back from holiday and has given her first interview to the BBC’s Matt Chorley. A disaster…
Here are the lines:
Kids – strap in…
Burnham has said the “plan is working” on small boats after ignoring them completely since taking office. How does his first week stack up?
Burnham took office on 20 July 2026. His first seven days, 20 to 26 July, saw 881 small boat arrivals in 13 boats.
Starmer took office on 5 July 2024. His first seven days, 5 to 11 July, saw 546 arrivals. The week ending 27 July 2025 saw 643 arrivals in 11 boats. Burnham’s week is up 37% on that…
Crossings are falling in general: there were 13,350 arrivals in 2026 to 26 July against 24,081 at the same point in 2025. Migration experts say there is a wider reduction in the numbers arriving to the European continent from the Middle East and Africa. No celebration from Team Mahmood yet – they know it could go back up…
After proposals were mooted for a special conference in London this week and a meeting between Wes Streeting and Pete Hegseth, it won’t go ahead. A defence source told Nick Watt:
“The UK remains committed to protecting freedom of navigation and safeguarding commercial shipping across the Gulf region. The Defence Secretary has been having constructive discussions with allies on diplomatic and military efforts to strengthen maritime security, and these will continue in the coming days.”
Streeting did have a call with Pete Hegseth and the French Armed Forces and Veterans minister Catherine Vautrin yesterday. What’s going on with Streeting’s “charm offensive”?
UPDATE: MoD insists the meeting can’t have been cancelled because it was never formally scheduled and there were only “lots of discussions” around it.
Tom Baldwin, author of Starmer’s hagiography, spoke to Times Radio:
Tom Baldwin: “I think he’d like to do something. He’s very dutiful and driven by service. That’s why he came into politics. I think that’s characterised his time as prime minister. He hasn’t always sought popularity or been good at being popular. But I think he has some of the necessary qualities that we actually do want in a prime minister. That resilience, that relentlessness, that ability to carry the weight and the job really does weigh very heavily on people and he carries that weight very, very well.”
Jo Coburn: “NATO Secretary-General?”
Tom Baldwin: “I think that’s something that he would be interested in. I think it probably requires Andy Burnham’s government to support him in that and these are some of the questions which Andy Burnham has to resolve quite quickly.”