After months of attacking Starmer and Reeves’ Downing Street operation Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham is fleshing out his policy platform. The King in the North has been a thorn in the PM’s side since he entered Downing Street…
Delivering his ‘alternative left policy programme’ in London’s Ministry of Sound nightclub on Saturday, Burnham launched a scathing attack on the actual Labour leader, (and not for the first time) offering up his own policy ideas instead. Looking suspiciously like a leadership manifesto…
- Set a new overriding national target on housing.
- Launch the “biggest and quickest” council and social house-building programme Britain has ever seen.
- Introduce proportional representation, to bring a “new politics.” A staple of all high-falutin progressive leadership pitches…
- Bring in “free transport for teenagers in England.”
- Talk about technical education and “working-class ambition” in the same way it talks about university education, with “two equal paths, one academic one technical.”
- Reverse the pensioners’ winter fuel allowance and the disability benefits and not make cuts.
- “Reset the balance” on the “overtaxed labour and undertaxed wealth.”
Burnham went on to say Labour needs to work on a “substantially new offer for the public” that “speaks to the ambition of all of those people, all of those places that have felt modern politics has ignored them”. A little outside his brief…
Jenrick’s video on the Underground has accrued 14.7 million views on X alone. The left continues to rage over it mainly by accusing Jenrick of being an attention-seeker. Ever heard of politics…
London mayor Sadiq Khan has issued a tantrum response towards the shadow justice secretary this afternoon on Times Radio:
“Fare evasion is an issue. It’s an issue for London, has been for some time and that’s one of the reasons why we’ve invested hugely in terms of not just enforcement officers, not just in terms of body-worn videos, not just in terms of CCTV, but invested in the police as well. What I find ironic, and it’s an example of the chutzpah of Mr Ozempic, is that he was in government when the government cut more than a billion pounds from their police budget. He was in government when the government removed Transport for London’s operating grant, and now he’s criticising the consequences of the cuts in policing and TfL made by his government. Where was he in 2010, 2024 when those cuts were being made in our policing? Where was he in 2015 when the government cut their operating grant to TfL?”
Guido remembers Khan whingeing about Trump giving him a nickname: “I’m a bit surprised that the President of the USA would, frankly speaking, behave like an 11-year-old and resort to name calling.” Rattled?
UPDATE: Tory Susan Hall AM told Guido:
“It’s relieving to hear Sir Sadiq suddenly discover how devastating police cuts are, considering that up to 1700 officers in London face the chop because he and this disastrous Labour Government refuse to make up the gap in police funding. Perhaps if the Mayor stopped calling a member of the King’s Privy Council childish names and focussed on the issue at hand, we could actually solve antisocial behaviour in the capital.”
Zia Yusuf has gone to Kent County Council today to launch the first iteration of Reform’s DOGE Unit. There was some speculation as to how it would work and how many there would be…
Here is how the party will execute its Reform Directorate of Government Efficiency:
- Zia Yusuf and entrepreneur Nathanial Fried – working pro-bono as the official head of the unit – will do a ringaround of all 13 Reform-controlled councils, starting with Kent.
- In each they will form a unit with local Reform councillors. In Kent it is Linden Kemkaran, leader of Kent county council and, Brian Collins, deputy leader.
- Arron Banks is an adviser, not a member of the central unit.
That confirms it is one unit as opposed to many embedded in each council. Federal, lean…
Reform sources say Fried approached the party during the local elections and that he has no agenda other than to prove uncovering waste can be done at council level and then national level. Reform says it will use “artificial intelligence, advanced data analysis tools, and forensic auditing techniques” to identify wasteful spending and recommend actions. All Reform DOGGERS are working for free. The unit will have to grapple with maudlin council staff who would rather eat their own fists than help eradicate waste…
Fried has a team of “software engineers, data analysis and forensic auditors” working under him. Guido is glad to see Reform taking inspiration from his UK DOGE project which has so far identified billions of pounds of waste, including at the council level. The team stands ready…
The four-legged-animal-beater-in-chief is still banging on over at less visited social platform Bluesky – the failing X copycat for lefties who couldn’t stand Musk’s reign. Jolyon’s Bluesky bio urges followers to “fight the power,” rather than uhh, fight the foxes…
In response to news that the Scottish Parliament – in line with the recent Supreme Court judgement – will designate male or female facilities by biological sex, Maugham posted: “Everyone’s getting sued. A huge bonus for lawyers – and a massive deadweight on the economy.” It’s also good news for the Good Law Project…
Jolyon’s crowdfunder to flap at the Supreme Court’s Equalities Act ruling has already racked up a cool £400,000 – despite precisely zero prospect of the challenge having any success. And this despite their last nine crowdfunded cases having lost…
Jolyon has himself implied defeat is on the way: “we must also point out that the Supreme Court has revealed a readiness on the part of our courts to disapply, in the case of trans people, normal legal and procedural safeguards.” The kimono-d KC rounded off his incensed rant over on X by declaring that “every anti-abortionist is also a transphobe.” The money keeps pouring in for this time-wasting lawfare…
A new report written by ex-Treasury economist Chris Walker estimates that more than 10% of non-doms have already packed their bags and fled the UK thanks to Labour scrapping the non-dom tax status. Another big blow to Reeves…
The report titled UK Non-Doms Tax Reform: A Critique and Retrospective Analysis estimates 26,000 non-doms – out of 238,000 who claimed non-dom status in the last 18 years – have left the UK based on figures from Henley & Partners on the number of millionaires leaving London in 2024. Data from the CEBR estimates if 25% of non-doms were to leave the UK, the net gain for the Treasury would be zero. Any higher the Treasury would start losing revenue…
The report also points out:
- The government based the policy on “over-optimistic and incomplete analysis” from academics at Warwick University led by pro-tax fanatic Arun Advani, who also provided the academic basis for the Farm Tax. They only examined the behavioural response of long-term resident non-doms, who were always likely to have a greater attachment to the UK. And they estimated only 0.37% of non-doms would leave the UK…
- The OBR ascribed a very high uncertainty rating to their tax revenue costings, meaning the abolition of non-dom status carried a high fiscal risk.
- The government didn’t factor in international competition. As the UK scrapped the non-dom status, other countries are opening their doors to non-doms. For example, Italy is offering a flat tax to wealthy non-doms of €200,000…
Chris Walker, founder of CW Economics and the report’s author said:
“It is clear that the original research that underpinned the Government’s decision to abolish non-dom status took a leap of faith. Its methodology around predicting behavioural changes was too narrow and that led to very optimistic findings about the number of non-doms who would leave and the amount of tax revenue the Treasury would raise”
Laffer curve already kicking into action…
Farage and Tice are speaking to journalists in Scotland about the net zero and the ‘deindustrialisation’ of Scotland. Scottish Tory councillor Duncan Massey has defected for the event…
Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election just down the road…
Red Wall Labour backbencher Jonathan Brash told GB News that Starmer should resign:
“I’m completely fed up about it, and I think it’s got to the point now where I genuinely think that, as far as the Prime Minister is concerned, it’s not a case of if, it’s when.”
