In October 2020, Mayor Andy Burnham said during Covid:
“People here in Greater Manchester have been living under restrictions for three months, and they have taken a heavy toll on people. They are struggling. Businesses are on the brink of closure.
To accept any further restrictions in these circumstances would be certain to increase levels of poverty, homelessness, and hardship within our city-region.
Let’s be clear who is most affected by a Tier 3 lockdown: it is people working in pubs, in bookies, driving taxis. People too often forgotten by those in power.
But this city-region has never walked on by, and it never will.”
When taking action to regulate the high street Labour politicians, guided by Gordon Brown and his followers, band together bookies with vape shops and other ‘undesirables.’ Hitting betting shops is of course much easier than tackling any of the others, which have actually proliferated…
| Category | 2015 | 2020 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Licenced Betting Offices | 8,822 | 7,683 | 5,872 |
| Vape shops | 262 | 1,506 | 3,776 |
| Barbers | 2,953 | 8,899 | 18,078 |
| Confectioners | 399 | 674 | 1,365 |
| Adult Gaming Centres | 1,610 | 1,464 | 1,502 |
| Fast food takeaways | 2,882 | 6,537 | 13,478 |
The Betting and Gaming Council says 4,500 jobs have been lost in the gambling sector since Reeves’ tax raid at the budget last year. Burnham supposedly wants to go further – what does he actually believe?
Brits off to Europe this summer will encounter the hated EU EES or Entry Exit System, which uses biometrics and requires a photograph, significantly slowing down passport checks. All while the EU’s external borders are wide open to illegal migrants…
The EU has a deadline of 6th September to fully implement EES, which has suffered major software outages this year. The British travel and tourism industry is panicked about the effects of the full rollout. Several EU member states have been given a derogation from implementing the system. Now we learn Apostolos Tzitzikostas, the European commissioner for sustainable transport and tourism, responsible for negotiations over EES with non-EU countries, “has given private assurances that blanket border checks will be paused”, according to a briefing that seems to have emerged from the office of Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander. The UK Government appears to be relying on this chit chat rather than pursuing an exemption, you know, written down somewhere…
Why? As The Times puts it: “The UK is treading a fine line on the EES system, fearful that criticism of the scheme could disrupt trade talks with the EU”. Another negative outcome from Labour’s pro-rejoin push…
The latest pronouncement from No10 North is that Britain needs major constitutional reform as part of Burnham’s ‘circuit breaker’ philosophy. Trying to style himself as the new Blair…
Enter former Supreme Court justice Lord Sumption who took no prisoners in the Telegraph over the weekend:
“A written constitution… would have to deal with the whole workings of the state: the role and procedures of Parliament, the recruitment and functions of the second chamber, and the powers and duties of ministers. Not to mention the appointment and functions of judges, the civil service, elections, human rights, international law and all the other hot potatoes which have proved so controversial in the past.
It would be almost impossible to agree on them all, let alone get the result approved in a referendum. The British are notoriously indifferent to radical constitutional experiments for which there is no obvious need. Where is the obvious need for a written constitution?”
Burnham came to office with the broad approval and relief of the legal establishment – Starmer’s failure despite his KC and career as DPP was a tad embarrassing. Picking a fight with the upper echelons of the bench over a written constitution seems like a crazy idea, not to mention the parliamentary time it would absorb. Is Burnham just shooting from the hip or does he actually want to implement any of his more radical ideas?
Burnham’s Downing Street is in no good mood with officials from the MoJ over exemptions in the early release scheme. It’s falling apart…
Guido understands there is fury at Ministry of Justice officials, who have been accused of incompetence for coming up with changing capacity numbers in the prison estate. They are concerned that the prison crisis which reared its head in 2024 could return – meaning there would be no capacity for prisoners to be sent to prison after conviction…
Officials also advised No10 to exempt convicts based on the lengths of their sentence as opposed to the specific offences. Rejected because the politics of blocking sex offences and so on is more appealing…
Burnham’s strategy of adding exemptions means that he will experience populist drag and find it difficult to resist massive pressure to exempt other offences.
One No10 source describes the MoJ’s Permanent Secretary Jo Farrar as “weak” and suggests new Justice Secretary Alex Norris should turf out the top team. Collective mandarin gulping taking place…
The chairman of the Thames Valley Police Federation, Aileen O’Connor, has told Times Radio today that she’s “incensed” by Downing Street saying it’s “not possible.” She started the petition calling for PC Andrew Harper’s killers to be exempted from early release, which is now at 880,000 signatures…
Downing Street’s argument as of today is that you can’t exempt these manslaughter convicts without exempting all of them. Ever heard of legislation?
Rachel Reeves has changed her bio on X since leaving No11. Back to her roots…
It now reads:
“MP for Leeds West and Pudsey🌹| Former Bank of England economist”
It’s good that she doesn’t claim to have been an economist at HBOS as she did previously. She worked in complaints…
Reeves has been posting about running and baking cakes and so on since refusing to serve in Burnham’s Cabinet. Maybe another book is in the works – try not to plagiarise passages this time, though, Rachel…
The government-funded research institute run until recently by science minister Chris McDonald has entered insolvency proceedings. Doesn’t bode well…
The Materials Processing Institute, the Teesside research centre run by Labour minister Chris McDonald for a decade, has begun proceedings under the Insolvency Act. McDonald was chief executive of the institute from 2014 to 2024, having led its divestment from Tata Steel. He remained a strategic adviser right up until his election as Labour MP for Stockton North…
He was appointed a minister of state at the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade on 21 July 2026 in Burnham’s reshuffle, and took on the science brief. The role carries oversight of UK Research and Innovation. With a hefty public purse at its disposal…
The MPI has been a repeat recipient of millions of public funding through UKRI – the body McDonald now oversees. Having been propped up for years by the taxpayer – ultimately fruitlessly…
Lord Khan in the Telegraph: “I hope, and I say this in a non-pompous way, that the public service I do will bring rewards in this world and the hereafter,” he says. “I’m hoping the work I do is earning me Brownie points.”