Do they think we are stupid?

 Labour tax adviser Dan Needle has suggested to Burnham that means testing the state pension could save £1 Billion to fund more freebies for those on benefits. I have a serious problem with this.  Firstly Labour consider a pensioner couple with  a combined gross income of £51,376 to be rich. However the retirements Standards states that for comfortable retirement a couple needs a gross income of £60,600 per year -  which is greater than the threshold Labour consider pensioners to be rich. If you engage with any adviser for retirement planning they factor in the state pension into the mix. The current state pension is £241.30 per week per person so assuming the couple have contributed enough then each will receive £12,547 per year which combined is £25,095 per year. That's 41% of the £60,600 joint income to be considered to be comfortable and 48.8% of Labour's rich pensioner threshold. So means testing eligibility for the state pension could actually leave those who h...

 The King of the North seems to want to put his devolved No 10 in Manchester - presumably for an easy commute.  Why Manchester and not Rotherham or Leeds? Manchester does have a high productivty rating - because of the Busy Bee population of Manchester - but the top performing town/city is Slough. Why not put No 10 there? Leeds is a vibrant fast growing city.  Excellent transport links which would allow access from around the country being more central than London. Rotherham is the fastest growing town in the UK in the last decade. Why not put No 10 there? I guess the commute for Andy is less convenient....

 Enter Starmer stage left Practice nasal tone... My fellow Britons, Now let me be clear.  I am here to announce something which will cause great sadness in the electorate. This is a moment of national mourning. A moment of great loss.  My thoughts are with the electorate at this difficult time and it will be hard for Britain to accept this loss.  I get it. I promised to put country before party but now is the time to put myself before party and party before country. But there is hope.  This is a serious moment for our country. It requires serious leadership, serious decisions, and, above all, serious people saying the word "serious" with sufficient seriousness. After careful reflection, I have decided to resign as Prime Minister. I get it. People are frustrated. People want change. People have questions. I've seen the polls. I've read the newspapers. I've avoided answering any questions at PMQ.  I've even listened to the Today programme. I was even consider...

 As the coronation of Burnham rolls ahead there is lots of speculation about who will be in his cabinet. It seems Rachel will be replaced which is concerning .  The alternatives seem dire and she is the best the Labour party has to offer although I think she's pretty useless.  In the real world candidates would sit exams and be screened on their ability but those rules don't apply in government.   To help Andy I've developed this little exam to screen candidates.  Rachel scored 50%.  Let's see if any of the candidates are clever enough to match Rachel's top score.  Feel free to do the test: Q1:  What is 1+1 ? Q2:  You are taking over an economy that raises £868 Billion / year from taxation and spends £1.2 Trillion / year.  You are borrowing money each month on the gilt markets simply to service the £3 trillion debt and cover the spending shortfall.  Your are forecast to increase the debt to £3.5 Trillion by the election term....

 Wind the clock back to 2024 and Rachel was making a big fuss about financial Blackholes.  She moaned on an almost daily basis that those nasty conservatives had left her with a £20 Billion blackhole in their finances.... So fast forward to June 2026.  In 2024/25 Rachel increased net borrowing by £148 Billion. In 2025/26 she then increased borrowing by £132 Billion and so far in April/May 2026 she has increased borrowing by an additional £46Billion (now £23 Billion per month) That comes to £326 Billion in roughly 24 months which means an average of £13.6 Billion per month.  It's beginning to look like the original £20 Billion blackhole was more a pimple than a blackhole. Where has this money gone?  It's hard to point to any tangible assets.  It looks like it's been spent on NHS pay settlements, welfare spending, education (probably teacher pay rises).  Some has gone onto house building.  So when Labour came to power, the debt pile was £2.7 TR...

 It's not often that UK parliament gives me something to laugh about but this week did. As Burnham was being signed in as a member of Parliament, one of the conservatives quipped that "He's not the messiah", quoting Monty Python Life of Brian. It was quickly followed by the next line from Life of Brian "He's a naughty boy". In the rush to crown Burnham as the next messiah of the Labour party, Starmer's love of due-process seems to have gone out of the window and there seems to be little scrutiny of Burnham. It wouldn't surprise me if indeed he is a naughty boy... Burnham's wife is Marie-France van Heel. She is a director of Be.EV. Manchester Transport awarded Be.EV a £450k EV charging contract in 2024 and there are other related contracts. Of course Burnham was Mayor of Manchester on this date. Conflict of interest??  Back in 2022 Burnham publicly rebuked any connection with his wife for the  Clean Air Zones (CAZ) contracts which were awarded...