Jeremy's Den: August 2026

You’ve got to remember we are an island, mate. People have been coming here for years, breeding with the locals. We’d like to kid ourselves otherwise. We’re one big mongrel race.

(Ronnie Brooks, Law & Order UK, 2009)

To many voters outside Greater Manchester, Burnham is still a relatively unknown quantity. For much of the electorate, it will be the overture that decides their verdict on the show.

(Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian, 17 July 2026)

If you turn back time to 1976, you will witness some events, dear boy, events that have an uncannily disturbing similarity to what we are going through half a century later, though they were also vastly different if you take a closer look. There was an unprecedented heatwave, which nobody blamed on climate change as nobody had heard of climate change yet. James Callaghan became Prime Minister midterm, two years after the previous general election, and absolutely nobody demanded a snap general, not even Margaret Thatcher though opinion polls were very favourable for the Conservatives. The Thirteen Colonies celebrated a meaningful anniversary under an unpopular Republican President, who at least did not turn the celebrations into an exercise in narcissism or start a war because he was bored. He actually ended one, which also turned into a fucking PR disaster. And along came our soundtrack for today, one of the masterpieces of English soft rock, Al Stewart's Year Of The Cat, which also conjures some distant echoes in current events. On a morning from a Bogart movie, in a country where they turn back time, you go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre contemplating a crime.

Let's forget about Larry The Cat's change of guest for now, as we are just one day past the biggest by-election ever in the history of These Isles, and it was the perfect welcoming gift for the new tenant of The House At The Back. There was little doubt Bev Craig would win this election, and the change in electoral law did not alter her prospects. Five successive polls showed her topping the popular vote, the first preferences under Instant Runoff, which would also have delivered a win under first-past-the-post. Four polls also surveyed the second preferences and calculated the runoff result, which predicted a Burnham-like win on two thirds of the vote for Bev Craig. So it is no surprise at all that the actual result delivered just that, and now nobody can deny Bev Craig has a clear popular mandate to perpetuate the politics of Manchesterism until the next scheduled election on the 4th of May 2028. There was even a Makerfield Effect here too, as Craig's share of first preferences was 6% higher than her best poll.

The detail of the first preferences by Metropolitan Borough is also quite interesting, as it shows how Labour's Burnham Bounce has trickled down into this election. This being Manchester, you would have expected that it would, and it has. Bev Craig topped the vote in all ten Boroughs, when Labour candidates cane first in none at the Council elections. The comparison between the Council results and the Mayoral results shows what everybody expected, massive tactical voting from the Greens and LibDems for Labour, allowing Labour to more than double its vote share, from 23.7% in May to 47,1% in July across the ten Boroughs. In half of the Boroughs, there is also clear evidence of Conservative tactical voting for Labour. As expected too, Restore Britain snatched most, and in most cases all, of its votes from Reform UK. But in Manchester, Salford and Wigan, where Burnham's Makerfield constituency is located, the Restore vote is lower than Reform's losses, which evidences switches from Reform to Labour between the two elections, which we should probably have also anticipated in this context. All around, a fucking good day for Labour, and personally for Burnham.

Ironically, Bev Craig now finds herself in a better situation than Andy Burnham. Being Leader of the Manchester City Council, and in charge of business and economy in the Grater Manchester Combined Authority, is clearly a better preparation for her new job than Mayor of Greater Manchester for the Prime Ministerial position. She will also be in a safe position as leader of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, even if the results of the latest local elections were a disaster for Labour all across the region. Having only a third of seats up helped Labour control the damage, even in Councils where they lost all their incumbents. They were also helped by the winds of change splitting in two opposite directions, partly for the Greens and partly for Reform. As of now, Labour is certain to hold nine out of eleven seats on the Authority's Cabinet, with Stockport held by the LibDems and Oldham still in limbo after the Council failed to elect a leader. Of course, the position also has its ordeals, like having to accommodate Donald Trump at the G20 Summit next year, with his two Air Force Ones and his court. Obviously Andy Burnham could not resist hosting the summit in Manchester, which the Orange Baboon had demeaned as some sort of provincial town, and making that the very first announcement of his brand new Premiership. Cheeky Andy!

Andy Burnham also promised he would be popping into Greggs regularly because that’s where he often got his best ideas. That must have given the security detail in No 10 heart murmurs.

(John Crace, The Guardian, 17 July 2026)

I have to say I cannot back joke figures with ridiculous policies, which is why I'm supporting Count Binface.

(Ed Davey, 15 July 2026)

Salvador Dali claimed that the railway station at Perpignan was the centre of the universe, after he experienced a cosmogonic vision there, allegedly, and even painted it as such. For the British mediataro-punditarial complex, the pier at Clacton-super-Mare became the centre of the universe on the Seventh of the Seventh, when Benito Farage resigned his Commons seat. But the pundits hate it as the incoming by-election has defied all rules and patterns of British politics, and become a riddle within an enigma. wrapped in a bin bag. For them, having no pre-scripted narrative for it is even worse than having to travel there for real in the middle of a heatwave. The very bizarre nature of this by-election is also surely the reason why nobody has yet polled voting intentions in situ. No pollster wants to be the first to tell the world that their survey of the Clactonians predicts that Benito The Media Darling will be defeated by a bin. But Ipsos polled the entire population of the UK about whom we wish and hope will win, and we are definitely leaning towards Count Binface.

The pro-Binface feeling is quite widespread across all demographics, especially among the younger generations and the left-leaning voters. But even right-wingers are not totally hostile to the Count. A fifth of Conservative voters, and even one out of twelve Reform voters support him against the Tinpot Führer. Even the locals who elected him in a moment of pure cold rage have their doubts, as their dogs have detected the unmistakeable scent of bullshit around him. Now, mates, what if Count Binface actually becomes the new MP for Clacton two weeks from now? Does he believe that it could happen, or why else would he make pledges to Clacton that are well outwith his usual "joke candidate" répertoire? Nobody has polled these new proposals, but Ipsos tested some elements of his 2024 Manifesto. And he gets pretty much the same balance of support and doubt that any standard politician would get on their trademark policies. Can Binism now replace Reformism and Greenism as the alternative to Manchesterism?

Oddly, Keir Starmer initially thought it was a good idea to remind Labour members that the party's rules forbid campaigning for another party's candidate. Which is true but totally irrelevant to the Clacton by-election. Strictly speaking, the rule applies only if Labour are standing in that specific election, which is not the case in Clacton. And there is of course precedent, when Labour stood down and campaigned for Martin Bell in Tatton in 1997. Keir should really have shut the fuck up, rather than reminded us how out of touch with real people he is. The LibDems have no such qualms, and some of them even seem ready to welcome Count Binface on their benches. But, no matter who is now campaigning for Jonathan David Harvey and who is not, you could see panic growing in the Farage camp when he tried weaponising Ann Widdecombe's murder as some fabricated conspiracy theory to feed his campaign. Mind you, I have never believed in not speaking ill of the dead, and Widdecombe was an abhorrent stridently vociferous bigot. But Farage using her corpse as a campaign stunt was even more repugnant, if possible, even if she might actually have approved of it.

We get one go this side of eternity, one go. Life is not a dress rehearsal, you take opportunities that you like and you go for it.

(Ann Widdecombe)

I wouldn’t count your chickens. Your omelette just hit the fan.

(Adam Schiff, Law & Order, 1993)

The Clacton Circus has put political donations in the spotlight again, though any significant reform of the current corrupt system is unlikely in the foreseeable future. Keir Starmer was not ready for anything but minute baby steps. Andy Burnham has never mentioned the reform at all, so it is likely to remain in limbo for a long time when Commons reconvene. Even the most radical Labour MPs were unwilling to go further than a £100k per annum cap on donations, or roughly three times the average salary, which is fucking laughable. Even the Green Party, who could credibly have campaigned for tougher legislation, did not even pretend to be interested, as reforming political funding in not even mentioned in their 2024 Manifesto. This is just one of a myriad of issues about which the Greenies totally fail to read the room, as a majority of the Great British Public opine that large donors have too much power over our politics, most prominently Green voters. Another hint for Andy Burnham. A tougher reform of party and campaign finance would have massive popular support, so he would gain political capital with it, not expand it.

Then the Poundshop Führer, Clacton's Absentee MP, offered us one of the fun moments of July when he was caught whining that being held to account for taking bribes was a coordinated pile-on. Well, that's what criminal investigations usually look like, don't they? The very Trumpian way Farage dictated his troops what they were required to tell the media in defence of the Führer did not sound any better. Calling a legitimate investigation an establishment stitch-up is just what the Orange Baboon would do, and does, so Benito naturally had to say the same. Next thing you know, he will call the whole story of the dodgy donations revealed by The Guardian "fake news" and "a hoax", because that's what the Orange Baboon does. But the Great British Public no longer believe Benito and his self-serving whining. We totally support the investigation into the dark side of his dealings, now and beyond the by-election.

Even Reform voters think that Benito should be investigated and that the investigation should go on if he is re-elected. Which, by the way, is neither optional, nor decided by vox populi. It's just the basic rules of any Standards investigation. As long as the individual is a sitting MP, he is fair game. The irony is that the only way Benito can stop the Standards investigation is losing the by-election, as private citizens are not within the jurisdiction of the Standards Commissioner. But this would not stop the Metropolitan Police's investigation into suspicious donations to Reform UK, which has triggered Richard Tice squealing about persecution and conspiracy. This is again a totally Trumpian deflection manoeuvre, up to and including the threat of legal action, which Dicky knows would never go beyond the laugh-it-off stage in any self-respecting Magistrates' Court. But all the grandstanding and gesticulation will not stop the growing stench of corruption surrounding the British Union of Putinists and their Duce, which the Great British Public are totally aware of.

So a third of us think that Benito is more corrupt than the average politician. Suspicious minds think alike, don't they? And they're usually right. But another third opine he is only as corrupt as the rest, which is definitely not a compliment for the rest when you consider the amount of bribes and blood money Benito has taken, That we know of, as it looks like just the tip of the iceberg, with more juicy episodes to come. Taking the dosh is not even the worst part, fabricating five or six different stories about how and why you got it is. It's Law & Order 101, successive lies are as good an admission of guilt as you will ever get. Criminals get caught because they are appallingly stupid, not because the Polis are MENSA-grade smart, and Benito is no exception. If you are a pathological liar, who has never said anything that was not a complete fabrication, the least you can do is remember all the lies you have told, and to whom. If your brain is too below average to process that, you will get caught. It's just a matter of time, and you will fully deserve it. Just look at what's happening to the Orange Baboon, Benito's role model, if you have any doubt.

He lies for the same reason why dogs piss on lampposts. It’s their nature.

(Matt Devlin, Law & Order UK, 2009)

You shouldn’t underestimate your average prole. It’s all about emotion, not the truth.

(Dominic Peck, Law & Order UK, 2010)

Now, as the saying goes, behind every corrupt MP, there is a German Shepherd waiting at the bathroom door. Err... actually, no... there is a queue of corrupters running around the block. In Benito Farage's case, two names have been named in the open. Christopher Harborne, who rehomed himself to England to circumvent the new rules about foreign donations. George Cottrell, the baby-faced convicted felon who calls Benito "Daddy". That's also what Mattie Sorin called Francis Urquhart, and it really did not bring her luck. Just saying. These two are obviously just a pair from a crowd, as the Met has also unearthed suspicious activity from Fiona Cottrell, Posh George's mother, using Richard Tice as a go-between for the supply of dark money to Reform UK. YouGov polled our feelings towards these gifts and the results are quite appalling. A quarter of us think that corruption is acceptable, unsurprisingly including half of Reform voters. There is summat of a "boys will be boys" attitude here that borders on complicity. Are a quarter of us really stupid enough that Whining Benito is the victim here?

In the current investigation led by the House's Standards Commissioner, the corpus delicti and the cui bono seem firmly established, pending further developments, so we can also think in terms of appropriate punishment. The case is not within the remit of the criminal justice system, yet, so we have to explore what is possible under the current rules of the House Of Commons, which are both quite strict and lacking in scope of available sentences. YouGov also surveyed which kind of sentence we think is appropriate, adding two at the top that are not part of the current rules. Again, there is a disturbing feeling of leniency towards corruption, as four out of ten of us would go for what basically amounts to an inconsequential slap on the wrist. It is irrelevant and immaterial that slightly more of us would choose the two harshest sentences proposed by YouGov, as these do not currently exist. If somebody proposed to add them now to the available range of punishments, the Fash would surely squeal that it would be an intolerable denial of the people's democratic right to freely choose their elected representatives. After all, their role model Trump was elected in 2024 as a convicted felon, so why should that be banned here?

The current House rules allow for a quick escalation, up to triggering a by-election via a long suspension and a recall petition, but the House cannot ban an MP from standing for re-election or remove them from their seat. Only the criminal justice system can, though not unambiguously. A custodial sentence of more than one year, conditional to it being upheld on appeal, leads to immediate disqualification from sitting as an MP. But the very nature of the disqualification is not explicitly stated. Does it apply for life? Or only for the duration of the sentence? The issue has in fact been resolved by precedent, not by law, as none of the MPs sentenced to a year or more since 1945 has ever sought re-election. Perhaps we should take our cues from France, where criminal courts can ban a convicted felon from standing for election, either for a determinate period or for life. This was even at the core of a Very French Controversy about Marine Le Pen's ability to stand at their next Presidential election. But all laws, rules, regulations and procedures, which have been strengthened after the Expenses Scandal of 2009, cannot curb the ever rising cost of our general election campaigns.

The Electoral Commission reports campaign expenses in two different ways. One dataset includes only spending by the national parties and the so-called "non-party campaigners", which is regulated and capped only for the last year before Election Day. NPCs are defined by the Electoral Commission as individuals and organisations that are not political parties campaigning on issues or causes around elections without standing candidates themselves. The electoral law calls them simply "third parties", which is not really clearer or less confusing. This is knowingly incomplete, so the Electoral Commission publishes a second dataset that adds spending by individual candidates, which is regulated and capped from the day after Parliament is dissolved, and that's the best we have to assess the real full cost of our elections. International comparisons mean little as the rules and practices differ widely, but the last German general election, held in 2025, cost €109m or roughly £93m. So a very similar cost for a very similar number of MPs, 630 there versus 650 here. The French legislative election of 2022, their last held at the scheduled date and with a full campaign, cost only €62.5m, or £54m, for 577 MPs. In the United States, where elected officials are legally up for sale to the highest bidder, the Congressional elections of 2024 cost $10.2bn, or £8.8bn, 93 times the cost or our general election of the same year. Thank Dog neither Christopher Harborne nor George Cottrell can afford to pour that much into our next election, but Vladimir Putin or Elon Muck surely could. You've been warned.

It’s not as easy as it sounds, and given that is doesn’t sound easy at all, you can imagine how easy it isn’t.

(Victoria Coren-Mitchell)

The change of Prime Minister is unfolding more like a royal wedding. You feel an ambient duty to spectate and even celebrate, but you’d be mad not to stay sceptical.

(Zoe Williams, The Guardian, 14 July 2026)

We have had the most eventless and suspenseless Labour leadership contest since the trial of Anne Boleyn, one so dull you could have easily forgotten it was taking place, and now Andrew Murray Burnham has become Prime Minister by acclamation. Not by default, like his two most recent predecessors, and with a lot of expectations to fulfil. You never get a second chance at making a first impression, proverbially, and, sadly, Andy Burnham failed that test. Twice. Just days after deriding the bond market's disproportionate influence on politics, he kowtowed to the bond market by refusing to appoint Risky Lefty Ed Miliband as his Chancellor. Then he ruled out a wealth tax, which may have been his only option to balance the books, within seconds of telling Gary Lineker, of all people, that he did not rule it out. It looks like, in Burnhamese, the two are not mutually exclusive. Then the combined forces of More In Common, Opinium and Survation have submitted an extensive array of possible policies to our approval. Not all of them are actually proposed by Burnham and the pollsters have added some from other sources, just in case they might surface on the parliamentary schedule some day.

Honestly, repealing the whipping system unilaterally, in the Labour Party only, would be just as stupid as unilaterally cutting down defence spending and hoping Trump and Putin would do the same out of the goodness of their hearts, which is Green Party policy. The Iron Fist Of The Whips has ruled Parliament since times immemorial, and it would be clearly unwise to remove it when Labour backbenchers have proved they can be as unruly as a herd of pre-pubescent brats on social media. Burnham will surely find it more expedient to drown them under an avalanche of new legislation, the surest way to keep them busy so they don't freewheel into some kind of petulant mischief. Right now, polls say that we are not convinced by Burnham's plans for English Devolution, but strongly support capping political donations to a lower level than even the harshest amendments to the Representation Of The People Bill, that was taken off the schedule to allow Starmer and Burnham to bask in the shared glory of passing the Hillsborough Law. We are also much more significantly supportive of measures that would have visible impact on our everyday lives.

If Burnham really wants a credible narrative of bold change benefiting The People, here it is in plain sight. But our priorities also throw a massive spanner across his path, as none can be met without some new public spending, which in turn implies major changes in tax policy. That's where the surprise appointment of John Healey as Chancellor, who resigned as Defence Secretary over lack of serious funding and Treasury obstruction, will surely spread panic among the horde of Humphrey Applebys haunting the corridors of Number Eleven, the most progress-averse clan in the SW1 Establishment Bubble, and the mightiest force for immobilism in the Realm. Healey will be no Reeves when it comes to defence spending, and may even make decisions that will please the Great British Public. Just look at our favourite solutions: no more borrowing, no spending cuts, less income tax, make corporations and the wealthy pay. Zack Polanski could endorse that, for fuck's sake, but the Treasury will never willingly swallow these pills. The Autumn Statement, Burnham's first opportunity to put his "business-friendly socialism" agenda to the test may thusly be quite a fight. Not appointing Shabana Mahmoud, as everybody and their dog expected, hints that he will not accept a lacklustre Budget of half-measures, written by the lobby of fiscal conservatism and making everybody unhappy.

The most hilarious reactions to Andy Burnham's irresistible ascent came from the woke Metropolitan faction on Blueshite, after a column in The Times alleging that Burnham would shift away from the London Left and prioritise "the values of provincial Britain". Of course woke Metropolitans, who have no lived experience of anything or anywhere beyond the M25, see provincial Britain as a hub of bigotry which should be brought to heel or cancelled. That's the real woke perspective on diversity and inclusion, excluding all those who do not look and think like them. Thank Dog, then, for The Hipstershire Gazette devoting a full column to the Lider Minimo of the Metropolitan Woke, Zack Polanski, accusing Burnham of being "too in hock to vested interests" to be a deliverer of change. Interestingly, Zack's statement, as verbatimmed by The Guardian, never mentioned defence, foreign policy or "trans rights". Or we would have had probable cause to investigate which vested interests the Green Party of England and Wales is in hock to, like, totally randomly, the manufacturers of puberty blockers and the Russian Reich. Zack may be a fucking wanker, but he sure knows when to avoid skating on thin ice.

Whether it’s governing this country or marrying into the royal family, the gig looks like a nightmare.

(Zoe Williams, The Guardian, 14 July 2026)

Unlike a royal wedding, this isn’t an event for which we have precedent. There’s no overall vibe of “behold, your saviour has arrived”.

(Zoe Williams, The Guardian, 14 July 2026)

It is quite fitting that Andy Burnham has become Lider Maximo of the Labour Party and the King of the Seven Kingdoms' Hand in the same week Mastermind, Only Connect and University Challenge all started new series. Millions of Brits now have something to live for again, that does not involve a pub brawl over VAR. Couldn't think of a better start for a Premiership Of Hope And Glory. Now, the first challenge Burnham will have to face is the massive public discontent accrued by Keir Starmer and its inevitable consequence, massive impatience. The More In Common poll shows that we expect results on most key issues within a year. But the truth is that it is probably less than that, much less, even if this poll shows far less negativity than earlier ones. Burnham will be under pressure to deliver as soon as Commons reconvene after their Bognor Regis break, and public opinion is likely to demand very precise and concrete answers in the Autumn Statement, which will pretty much shape domestic policies for the next year. Burnham has already started working on some of the public's main concerns just days after his accession, with some significant announcements. But we obviously expect more, and it is still way too early to tick the Mission Accomplished box.

The issue that Burnham will have to deal with among the first, thanks to Pat McFadden putting it squarely back on the table while he was auditioning for Chancellor, is probably not the one he would have chosen spontaneously. Welfare. There are some inconvenient truths you cannot avoid, because they are written in the Budget and thusly in the public domain. Over the last four years, the Premierships of Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, spending on welfare and benefits has increased by 35%, or 17% in real terms, adjusted for inflation. In the same period, defence spending has risen by only 7% in real terms, which totally demolishes the loopy woke far-left's narrative that the government is stealing money off the poor to fund war. Defence is not the Sacred Cow of all budgets, as some ideologically-groomed columnist for The Hipstershire Gazette claims, welfare is. The loopy woke should know this, as they are the first to vociferously question ever penny spent on defence, while blindly cheering the billions poured into welfare. What the Burnham Cabinet will have to decide, as early as the Autumn Statement, is whether or not we can afford to keep the welfare bill rising by 4% above inflation per annum, which has been the rate over the last four years and quite fits the definition of out of control, or if they put the brakes on that.

Tough one, even for the King Of The North, as it may lead to an early clash with the Welfare Junkies. Who are not benefit claimants of any category, but the self-serving virtue-signalling MPs on Labour's left who have made it their calling to pour billions after billions into welfare without ever reviewing the validity and efficiency of the whole system, including the DWP's bloated bureaucracy. The last released official figures say that the DWP is the biggest government department with a staff of 96.890, almost twice the size of the Home Office, on 50,655, and more than ten times the size of the Foreign Office, which employs only 9,435. That's also more than the British Army, on 78,830, or the combined forces of the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, on 35,070 and 32,550 respectively. Andy Burnham could very easily consider acting on this, regardless of the PLP's mood, and the most recent instalment of YouGov's Political Trackers shows he would have strong popular support for that, even from the Northern left-leaning working class and progressive Scotland.

Two thirds of We The People agree that the benefit system requires reforms, either significant or major. No government in the last ten years has had the baws to address this head on, and the system has become increasingly dysfunctional, though not always in the way Badenoch and Farage want us to believe. The Conservative governments have created a culture of systemic hostility to claimants among DWP staff, and this has to eradicated in parallel with other reforms, and possibly even as the preamble. Then the government cannot escape the urgency of a thorough audit of the whole benefit system, which is long overdue. The Conservatives sold us the illusion that Universal Credit would panaceously solve all our problems, and it clearly hasn't. Welfare consumes as much money yearly as health and education combined, spread across two dozen different benefits and allowances. So there is clearly room for more simplification than Universal Credit was supposed to achieve, in ways that would streamline the system without hurting claimants disproportionately. But, even before any radical blanket reform, Burnham will have to deal with the pension triple lock, which guarantees that state pensions will rise by 5% next year, way above the anticipated level of inflation. Not because he wants too, but because it is smart politics to kick the live grenade into the minefield while you are still enjoying a honeymoon, and hope that people will have forgotten when the next election comes around.

It would be better for Burnham if his ascendance stayed in the realm of the normal. A normally visionary politician, with a regular amount of supporters and critics. Future disappointments, which are inevitable, would feel more like life and less like a betrayal.

(Zoe Williams, The Guardian, 14 July 2026)

Andy Burnham needs people to believe he is a man with a ten-year plan and that it is worth waiting to see if it can work. That leaves a lot of room for things to go wrong.

(Rafael Behr, The Guardian, 22 July 2026)

The benefits system is not the only domain in which we expect and request change, either measured or radical, far from that. Ipsos has polled us about it, and there is a vast array of issues to work on. The oddity here is the focus on immigration, when we know that the situation has steadily improved over the last three years, after net migration reached a peak thanks to Brexit and Boris Johnson's ill-advised urge to cut all ties with the EU, even in areas where cooperation worked and is needed. What sort of radical change is required here, except in the Fash's factphobic propaganda, when all we have to do is confirming the current trends? Now, if you combine the red and the black, which is surely a more reliable assessment of our appetite for change, immigration drops to fourth place after the cost of living, the NHS and the management of utilities. And that definitely makes more sense than fixating on an issue that has been already resolved. Burnham has to hear the people's message, but must also be very cautious about which priorities he chooses and at which pace he decides to implement change. The obvious rick is opening too many fronts at once and succeeding on none, which would be disastrous, and not just for Labour's electoral prospects.

Interestingly, the domain in which we are the least hungry for change is devolution of power. The truth is that the reform of local government in England has been a work in progress for longer than Penelope weaving Laertes' burial shroud, as we now know thanks to Christopher Nolan. Everybody can see that it is a fucking mess, with more unfinished business than satisfactorily stabilised arrangements. Ironically, the simplification that allegedly aimed at removing layers of government has actually created new layers here, there and everywhere. There is no clear evidence that it has improved the efficiency of the whole system, and not just created additional local bureaucracies. It is a pity when you consider that a satisfactory reform had been enforced in Scotland and Wales years earlier, but English exceptionalism obviously meant they wouldn't just copy it. But nobody has ever proposed it, even if it does sound pretty common-sensical. Instead, we are toying with the fuzzy concept of devolution for England, which has been polled by JL Partners. And you don't feel a tsunami of enthusiasm for it.

There is neither optimism nor pessimism here, just scepticism. Of course, Scots and Welsh are not overjoyed with the whole concept, but why would they? More worryingly for Burnham, there is no majority supporting it anywhere in England, probably because people don't have a fucking clue what's behind the big words. Burnham's own North West is even among the less supportive of all English regions. Working from home on the Manchester premises of GCHQ, while the real No 10 North is being built, may be an apparent crowd-pleaser, but the people want more flesh around the bone. So far, all we have got looks more like the skeleton of the outline for the blueprints of a work in progress. Notwithstanding, English Devolution remains the most important of the Seven Pillars Of Burnhamism. within which he clearly favours giving more powers to the Mayors and Combined Authorities, as in a national extension of Manchesterism. But YouGov found we beg to differ, and delegating powers to the Mayors is never our favourite option for any of the selected issues.

There is a message from the bottom to the top here. If you're going local, then go localest and give the power to our Councillors, those we can doorstep or harangue on the High Street when we are unhappy bunnies with their decisions. Except when decision-making is better shared with SW1, or even kept in their hands, for national consistency. Either way, there is no room for the middleman here. But Burnham seems determined to advance fast, though the whole construct needs new primary legislation, which usually takes months, and sometimes years, to navigate its way through Parliament. He is already associating the Mayors in a reboot of Gordon Brown's National Economic Council, which existed in a timeframe when only London had a directly elected Mayor. What is not entirely clear is whether the New Model NEC will operate with more than an advisory capacity, which would potentially infringe on Parliamentary sovereignty and even open new quarrels with top Cabinet departments like the Treasury or BIST. It looks like Burnham considers this a risk worth taking to make his Magnum Opus become reality.

Power has been too centralised in Britain and tackling that is key to progress and prosperity. This initiative is ambitious. We’re remaking the State.

(Andy Burnham, The Guardian, 23 July 2026)

I will be a Foreign Secretary who fights for Britain’s interests and our values of democracy, freedom and the rule of law on the world stage.

(Ed Miliband, 20 July 2026)

The mediataro-punditarial complex will never admit it, because they want us to think of them as omniscient and infallible, but they were taken aback by the announcement of Andy Burnham's Cabinet just like the bloke at the pub. They had been lecturing behind the scenes about the inevitability of Chancellor Shabana Mahmoud and Foreign Secretary David Miliband, and look what Andy has done! Now we are at war with Trumpistan because Andy has chosen a Green Communist as Foreign Secretary, when he should have asked the Orange Baboon whom he was allowed to appoint. Tony Blair would of, innit? Ed's biggest flaw may actually not be his support for Net Zero, which will no longer be within his remit anyway, but his commitment to the rule of law, the one thing the MAGA Christo-fascists hate even more than all the "woke climate nonsense". Or, knowing this lot's usual conspiracist obsessions, it could just be because he is Jewish, couldn't it? YouGov has polled our opinion of the most prominent members of Burnham's Cabinet, which matters more than the punditariat's or Trump's, and it is a very predictable mixed bag.

Basically, we are ready to grant Healey and Haigh the benefit of the doubt for the time being, but already have our doubts about Burnham himself, and are not really enamoured with the rest of the Chosen Ones. It is also quite ironic that Rayner and Miliband, the ones most commonly identified as on the left of Labour, have worse ratings than Mahmood and Streeting, usually considered to be on the right, when the whole point of Burnham's PR operation is to convince us that Burnhamism is a lurch to the left from Starmerism. Which it may be, or not, only time will tell. Now YouGov will also have to test us again about the appointment of self-identifying socialists to lowly positions in the engine room of government. In the meanwhile, the first measures Burnham chose to announce in the first week of his Premiership certainly made quite an impression. YouGov has polled two of the most iconic decisions, and an earlier BMG Research polled one that has not been made yet, but is already proving hugely divisive and controversial.

Unsurprisingly, we are content with measures fitting Burnham's agenda of quick action to tackle the cost of living crisis, though we should be familiar by now with the basic rule that there is no such thing as a free meal, and somebody somewhere is always paying for it. Drilling the North Sea has surprisingly high support, including from Labour voters, and we cannot rule out that Burnham will allow more of it for all the wrong reasons, including the belief that the SNP lost the Aberdeen South by-election because of their opposition to it. It is nevertheless unlikely that Burnham's final answer, whichever way it goes, will swing many voters. Our collective main concern remains the cost of living crisis, and that's where we have both the greatest expectations and the greatest doubts, because our lived experience of the last five or ten years is definitely not fuelling optimism. YouGov obviously had to poll this too, and we are visibly not convinced yet that Burnham's policies will make us better off in the short term, either on their own merits or in comparison to what Starmer would hypothetically have delivered if he had remained in charge. Ball's in Andy's court now.

It is quite revealing that, after measures designed to address the cost of living crisis, Burnham chose to pick his first fight with the Starmerites over David Lammy's plan for the early release of thousands of convicted criminals. It is painfully obvious that the Sentencing Act 2026 was badly drafted and passed hastily under the influence of a bureaucracy of bean-counters at the Department of Justice, ideologically formatted to conveniently forget that the prime purpose of the criminal justice system is punishment, not rehabilitation. Burnham clearly had no choice but to stall the implementation of the Act until Parliament reworks it as a matter of urgency when it reconvenes for a short two-week sitting in September. There are worse ways to expand some of his hard-earned political capital, and that includes standing firm against union parochialism that ignores the victims and legitimate concerns for public safety. But it will probably not end here, as the fracas about the Sentencing Act 2026 has also put the very principle of early release under the microscope. Remember that, before the Act, the standard rule was automatic release after serving half the sentence, and the Act just lowered that to one third. Now that this can of worms has been opened, Burnham can't kick it into the long grass, and has to reconsider the very principle of automatic early release.

There is no private right of action under the criminal justice system, and so the State has an obligation to mete out fitting punishment.

(Jack McCoy, Law & Order, 1995)

The Tories and Reform had it easy when Keir Starmer was self-destructing. But a new Prime Minister with ideas exposes how vacant the opposition has become.

(Rafael Behr, The Guardian, 29 July 2026)

There are obvious signs that Andy Burnham's debut has been an outstanding success. One of them is that Shitweasel has not yet demanded his resignation, as he did every other day with Keir Starmer. Instead, the King Of The Wank seems content with lecturing the King Of The North on how to be a good boy from the pages of The Scottish Pravda. Which matters only if you believe that the wee cockroach really cares about the future and wellbeing of Scotland. In a word, I fucking don't. And now he is even politicising heatwaves to score some cheap points! Oddly, none of the established establishment pollsters has assessed our assessment of Andy's first week so far. Maybe they're following the unwritten rules about newly adopted rescue dogs, that we should give them three weeks before assessing their adjustment to their new home. Thank Dog then for one of the minor players, Merlin Strategy, whose usual clientèle is mostly found in the right-wing media circles. The have polled Andy's first steps twice, for GB News and The Spectator. Let's deal first with their quite bizarre GB News poll.

This poll reflects GB News' usual obsessions, rather than any genuine will to assess Burnham's intentions or achievements. Then you have to wonder what improving social cohesion actually means in their lingo. I suspect it is some kind of not very subtle dogwhistle for Make England White Again, or summat, but I may be wrong. But there is also a fun side to this poll, though I should perhaps call it a farcical side. Here we have a sample of 2,029 randomly selected consenting adults telling us that they would do better on every issue than the Miracle Prime Minister Dog has sent us to heal all of the Realm's wounds to the seventh generation. Are we really supposed to believe this, or is it just rooted in the assumption that the whole of the Great British Public are as gullible as the average GB News viewer? The Spectator at least tried and gave their poll a semblance of credibility, probing us on three iconic measures, including one the New Boss has not announced, as it actually is the Chancellor's job to include in the next budget. Or not. And announce it in Commons first, not to the press, or else Lindsay Hoyle will throw another hissy tantrum.

It looks like The Spectator have actually done their homework here, as raising the personal allowance from £12,570 to £15,000 means compensating for the compounded inflation since 2021, when Rishi Sunak froze it. But will John Healey go that far, or just make up for part of it in the name of the proverbially infamous fiscal discipline, or maybe even do nothing? Nobody knows, and nobody will know for sure for another three months, it's official, unless we have the usual batch of leaks. It is safe to bet Burnham will pressure Healey to revise the threshold, as it would ease the cost of living conundrum for the lowest incomes and also make for good PR. There is also an oven-ready way to make up for the lost revenue. Just copy the Scottish Government and raise the Higher Rate and the Additional Rate by 2p. After all, Burnham has already signalled that he may drift towards some creative reinvention of Starmer's pledges about taxes, and keeping the overall amount levied by the income tax unchanged while collecting less from lower incomes and more from higher incomes would do the trick. That would surely confirm our initial assessment of his job performance, which Merlin Strategy found to be as good as can be.

Burnham had been in office for just four days when this poll was conducted, so this is really a first impression. It is not as knee-jerk as you may think, though, as Burnham had started making Prime Ministerial announcements before he officially got the job, and even before he became leader of the Labour Party. So this first impression is based on a month of Burnhamisms, pretty much since the week after the Makerfield by-election, and not just the official First Four Days. The poll's panel had thusly been also exposed to the first broadsides of criticism from the oppositions, and Darren Jones' feeble attempt at backstabbing too. Oddly, Merlin Strategy omitted to publish the crosstab for Liberal Democrat voters, surely totally inadvertently and without any malevolent intent. They also would have to explain what "neither" means for what is pretty much a yes-or-no question, but other pollsters are guilty of that same stunt, and it does not hide the main result. Those of us who do have an opinion and express it consider Burnham's debut successful four-to-one. Enough to make Andy a happy bunny in the short period before the real trouble begins, when MPs come back from their holidays in the sun. Then he can expect many a hard day's night.

Burnham has done nothing to support the claim that his government is a 70s tribute act, unless you count the appointment of a man named Healey as Chancellor and the imposition of price controls on buses.

(Rafael Behr, The Guardian, 29 July 2026)

In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility. But when the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger.

(William Shakespeare, Henry V, Act III, Scene I)

If you look back at the chain of events, dear boy, events that led to Keir Starmer's resignation, and made him lose the will to fight, defence was the last straw that opened the floodgates for resignations, that made Burnham's ascent unavoidable and irresistible. You don't even need hindsight to reach that conclusion, it was already painfully clear when it happened that Starmer handled the controversial Defence Investment Plan like shit, as if he had pre-emptively decided it would be his Last Stand, though it totally lacked the mythological dimension of Little Big Horn or even the Charge Of The Light Brigade. It showed a lame-duck Prime Minister having lost all pretence of authority, and watching the bullets fly over his head between the Ministry of Defence and the Treasury. The massive irony is that the DIP was controversial only within the Cabinet, as the Great British Public had been telling pollsters for months that we spend too little on defence, and confirmed it again in a YouGov poll published just days after the King Of The North's Coronation.

The dominant opinion is pretty much consensual, as there are massive differences in only two of the usual demographics. So the Government is on solid ground when only the TikTok Generation and the loopy woke far-left object to increased defence spending. It is fucking amazing that Starmer did not strongarm the Treasury over the DIP, as earlier polls showed the same trends, and popular support for bigger defence budgets had been visible since the middle of last year, long before the DIP debate started and poisoned the Cabinet meetings. I am old enough to remember John Healey resigning because defence needed an extra £28bn and Rachel Reeves wouldn't give him even half of that, and then reluctantly conceded a little more than half. Now Andy Burnham is committed to adding £25bn to defence spending, a 39% increase in current money, over the next eight years, and making it his government's top priority. He has strong incentives to resolutely go down that road, as polling from Opinium shows that we are not entirely convinced by the last variant of the Starmer DIP, settled at £15bn, and have doubts about its ability to make us safer.

The neverending perennial debate about bairns and bombs, swords and ploughshares, welfare vs defence has undoubtedly taken an odd turn with the make-up of the First Burnham Cabinet. It has pretty much been twisted upside down, inside out and back to front with the appointment of a Chancellor who will support higher defence spending against his own austerity zealots, a Work and Pensions Secretary who has made the case for slashing benefits against the electoral instincts of the Labour Left, and a Defence Secretary who has been described as totally defence-illiterate but is determined to be as supportive of the defence effort as the New Boss and has already warned his own Department about their duty to deliver value for money. But We The People, true to very familiar patterns, remain unambiguously contradictory and ambivalent about the ways and means to a better defence. Find Out Now probed us with a totally straightforward question, going Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: Andy Burnham’s government should cut welfare spending in order to spend more on defence? That's the kind of direct yes-or-no question pollsters should always ask, instead of tiptoeing around "difficult" issues, and it shows us neatly split three-ways with the usual generational and political divides. Now that fucking Autumn Statement will really be fucking something.

If we are reluctant to stop the runaway train of welfare, do not want more borrowing and reject tax hikes, which is definitely our current state of mind according to several polls, what do we have left? Some have suggested that we fund defence with War Bonds "like during World War Two". The problem is that we never issued war bonds during WW2, the United States did. Our war effort was funded through the standard operation of the National Savings Movement, which predated the war by a generation and outlived it by a generation, but is sadly no longer with us. But we actually have an oven-ready option today, seizing all the Russian assets in the UK instead of dancing around them just collecting the interests. Of course, this is said to be against international law, though some experts totally disagree, but who gives a fuck about international law these days anyway? Stripping the vatniks to fund our protection against their genocidal imperialism, with enough billions to spare to plug all potholes in the UK within one year and make veterinary healthcare free at the point of delivery, would be immensely popular, wouldn't it? And totally justified, whichever way you look at it, if you're neither a brainwashed woke Putinist nor a Christo-fascist Putinist.

Of course there are shades of grey in my world. On a Saturday night in the pub over a pint.

(Jacob Thorne, Law & Order UK, 2011)

If comedy was what we wanted in a leader, then the Chuckle Brothers would be Prime Minister and they’d be doing a better job.

(Victoria Coren-Mitchell)

Polls are living things, aren't they? First we had a Burnham Bounce, but that was before he became Prime Minister. Then it debounced, because he wasn't Prime Minister yet and Keir Starmer still was. Then it rebounced once Andy finally became Prime Minister after weeks of tense suspense. The trendlines of voting intentions show that it is working, possibly even beyond Burnham's own expectations, and we are now pretty much where we were in March 2025. That was after Keir Starmer's shenanigans had already eroded the Labour vote, but before Reform's successes at the English locals, which actually hurt the Conservatives a lot more than Labour. But that was enough to convince the bottom-feeding headline-grabbers in the mediataro-punditarial complex, including the needy BBC, that it made sense to reframe themselves as the Fash's PR team. You may remember that the Brexit Party got the same kind of totally artificial boost after the 2019 European Parliament election. Back then it took two months and a change of Prime Minister for the mirage to dissipate. This time, we just added one year and the Führer of the Fash embroiled in criminal investigations.

Recent polls have added evidence after evidence that the bounce owes a lot more to Burnham himself than to anyone else. Except Keir Starmer of course, who reached Stage Five of Kübler-Ross just in time for a dignified and dramaless exit, that paved the way for a seamless transition without the factional infighting that is the proverbial trademark of the Labour Party. But it would be unfair to downplay Burnham's own contribution, which is illustrated by the most recent Survation poll. They asked the perennial question about whom we think would be the best Prime Minister, but also tested a comprehensive array of twelve defining characters traits. Burnham not just tops the vote for best PM convincingly, he also dominates on the nine positive traits, while Farage wins on the three negative traits and Kemi Badenoch is stuck in the middle in limbo. So there, pundits.

Of course, Burnham's personal aura would be irrelevant if it did not rub off and trickle down on the whole Labour Party, and the same Survation poll shows that it does. They probed which party we think is best placed to deal well with a laundry list of sixteen political issues of the day. Labour tops the vote on eleven, Reform on just one, and "none of the above" on four. But Labour comes second on three out of these four, and Reform again om just one. So we may just as well count this as a fourteen-to-two win for Labour, and also as evidence of the return of reasonably subdued optimism not just among Labour members and voters, but across the electorate as a whole. The King Of The North's challenge is now to make that last, which he can only achieve through credible and successful actions well beyond the proverbial First Hundred Days. His will end around the time of the Autumn Statement, which will be the perfect moment to show us what the Burnham Revolution is really about.

Now the question for Labour is existential. Will the Burnhamania transition into a Burnhami at the next election? Will it be a reburth and a reburrection? Well, if Starmer was still here, I guess everybody would say that Labour still has three years to lose the election. But, with Burnham in, it looks that the mood has swung, and the formerly Farage-worshipping mediataro-punditarial complex too, and everybody is ready to opine that Labour still has three years to win it. A real full three years as Burnham has wisely ruled out calling a snap election, which is just as it should be under the Realm's constitutional order. Don't even think of invoking the Johnson precedent of 2019. Boris never intended to call an early election until he repeatedly failed to pass the early drafts of his moronic Withdrawal Agreement. This is what triggered him, not the urge to get his own personal mandate, and he only got his snap election through a sur mesure constitutional stunt-cum-coup to circumvent the provisions of the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, which was very unwisely suggested to him by the Liberal Democrats and the SNP. Burnham does not need that, as both the Labour Party and the Great British Public have already granted him his personal mandate, above and beyond the Labour Manifesto of 2024. The mediatariat and the Fash just have to accept it and shut the fuck up.

There’s no early general election. I don’t think people want it. I just think what I most need to do is get Britain focused on getting the country back where it should be.

(Andy Burnham, Panorama, 27 July 2026)

It feels like the UK has a Prime Minister again. Who is prepared to expend political capital to get the things done that other politicians were too weak to go near.

(John Crace, The Guardian, 29 July 2026)

Now is as good a time as any to take a look at the popularity ratings of our three most prominent party leaders, which are composites of various ways of polling. Some pollsters ask you if you like the politicos or not, some if you have a favourable or unfavourable view of them, or if you think they're good or bad at their day job. Which is being an MP, not one of the nine second jobs some think they are entitled to. Not naming names, but you get my drift. Of course, the pollsters' diverse approaches can be complementary, but also wildly contradictory. Let's say it's fairly easy to imagine a politician who is as adorable as a newborn puppy but totally shite at his job, or one who is a repugnant shitehead but the best of the Realm at what he does. Not naming names again, as I will let you fill in the blankety blanks. Let's start with what the polls tell us about Kemi Badenoch, the LOTO, or more properly the Leader Of His Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition.

The evolution of Kemi Badenough's ratings is quite amazing as she is objectively a study in vacuousness and irrelevance surrounded by dimwits, one of whom has just staged his very own Gulf of Tonkin incident to drag us into war with France while on a fishing expedition for imaginary small boats. At first it was a game of "Kemi Who?" as lots of people didn't know who she was, and didn't care. Then she made a name for herself and, the more we knew her, the more we disliked her. Then her positives gradually and unbelievably got up and up, until she got a net positive in half of the polls fielded this month. Mind you, she owes nothing of this to her own merits, but solely to the Fash disintegrating mid-flight like one of Elon Muck's rockets, so even a non-entity now looks like the viable horse to bet on. It may actually have been easier than you'd think as the Führer of the Fash was never popular, contrary to what his horde of media sycophants want you to believe.

Benito Fromage's popularity has been tested by 263 different polls over the last two years, as often as Starmer and Badenoch, and only 14 of these found a net positive. It has even visibly gone worse recently, since Benito has been revealed to be at the centre of a corruption ring of entitled posh toffs. Schadenfreude is OK here, it is even recommended. Remember this is the bloke who is campaigning for re-election in Clacton-super-Mare from anywhere but Clacton-super-Mare. Because he hates the place, which is admittedly a fucking dump, and despises its inhabitants, who probably deserve it for having been stupid enough to elect him in the first place. You can't even call Benito a Marmite politician anymore, as it would require half of us liking him, and the actual number if far below that. But enough negativity, for now I give you the King Of The North and The Wild Frontier, the Eighth Wonder Of The World, Liverpool's gift to Manchester and the Alpha Quadrant, the Right Honourable Andrew Murray Burnham MP.

In YouGov's last Political Favourability Ratings, Burnham has a net rating of +5 in Scotland vs +3 GB-wide. In More In Common's most recent job approval ratings, he has a net +16 in Scotland vs +13 GB-wide. Is this what having a Prime Minister called Andy Murray does to us? The Midas touch works elsewhere too, obviously, after some odd outbursts of negativity. It certainly has a lot to do with Burnham being a communicator, which Starmer never was, and his interview on Panorama is a good example. Obviously it had been fully prepared and rehearsed, just like the testimony of the star prosecution witness at a Russian mafia trial, but he still managed to make it look authentic and candid. He even slightly fumbled some answers, which was enough for Laura Kuenssberg to not unleash her Inner Hellhounds. Yet. Of course he does have a honeymoon period, and these usually don't last long. Best educated guess is it will depend on how many will accept a smallish tax hike to fund the full revamp of the social care system without defunding other priorities. He may have bought himself some additional goodwill by hinting at a postponement of the final vote on the hugely controversial and abominably written Assisting Dying Bill until social care is fixed, which will infuriate only the Dalek fringe of the Labour Left. Brace yourselves for a Long Hot Autumn.

It’s the return of hope over grievance. Where once more we have an adult Prime Minister prepared to speak to voters as fellow adults. It could catch on.

(John Crace, The Guardian, 29 July 2026)

I mean, besides the beer and the music, what’s the deal with England?

(Kevin Turner, Law & Order, 1996)

The current snapshot of polls consists of the six most recent ones, fielded by Deltapoll, More In Common, Survation, YouGov, Find Out Now and BMG Research between the 722nd anniversary of the fall of Stirling Castle to Edward I's Loup de Guerre and Kate Bush's 68th birthday. I'm sure you can work out the dates all by yourselves, can't you? It's a super-sample of 11,124 or 81% of the mass of the Great Bell of the Great Clock of Westminster, colloquially known as Big Ben, in kilogrammes. Amusingly, the first four of these pollsters probed us twice just a few days apart, as if they didn't believe their findings and wanted to double-check that there was indeed a Burnham Bounce. Well, there is, definitely. Only Find Out Now and BMG Research remained cool-headedly stoic, like a golden retriever waiting for his human's signal to catch and gulp down the treat on his nose, and stuck to their respective once-weekly and once-monthly standard deliveries. So now we have a wee lead for Labour, delivering a hung Parliament with Labour as the first party. Keir Starmer's dream come true thanks to the change of management. I am also no longer tracking Your Party, as they have drowned themselves in the quicksand of oblivion, and their seats would either switch back to Labour or turn Green anyway.

There are significant signs of the Burnham Bounce in the projected votes from today's snapshot, including the start of La Reconquista Del Norte. Labour are now outvoting Reform in the North East, North West and Yorkshire, while holding their dominant position in London. They're also breathing down Reform's neck in the Midlands. The interesting side-plot is that Labour are also surging back quite visibly in Scotland and Wales, something Starmer never achieved. But the SNP and Plaid Cymru may still have a winning hand in this well hung Parliament. A Lab-Lib Pact would bag only 316 seats, just a few short of a working majority, so you have to wonder which price Burnham would be willing to pay for some variant of a confidence-and-supply deal that would push him across the majority hurdle with an acceptable safety margin, hypothetically up to 352 seats. Did I just hear someone at the back say, "second Scottish Independence referendum"?

There is something quite intriguing in the current projection. The Liberal Democrats are predicted to lose six seats GB-wide, and there is a concentration of losses in the South West of England. Two seats predicted to switch to the Conservatives and four to Reform UK. Everywhere else from John O'Groats to Barton-on-Sea, as Land's End is no longer available, Mister Ed's bandmates are predicted to globally hold their ground, just losing one in Wales and gaining one in the West Midlands. In London, Che Polanski could possibly get really elected for the first time in his life, instead of just filling a slot on a party list AI-generated by party bureaucrats. All he has to do is to humbly kiss Jeremy Corbyn's ring, as Emperor Heinrich IV did with Pope Gregorius VII, and ask respectfully if he can have the Islington North seat when Jezza retires, which he should have done already. This may well be Zack's last chance to ever become an MP, unless he wants to indulge in the same kind of electoral tourism Nigel Farage undertook for a generation before finding a welcoming landing pad. Winston Churchill did that too, by the way, if you want a better reference.

It is quite amusing that the most useful thing the LibDems have done this year is Danny Chambers, MP for Winchester and a veterinary surgeon, warning us about the effects of extreme heat on our dogs. But even that didn't help them much, as they find themselves weakened by the ripple effect of English voters shifting from Reform back to the Conservatives, which is bad news for Mister Ed's bandmates in Lib-Con marginal seats. The Greens are continuously losing more and more votes poll after poll, which is definitely good news, and not just for the Labour Party. Every lost vote pushes the loopy woke fanatics further and further away from being invited into a Government coalition, so their status has been downgraded from Threat to just Nuisance. Sadly, we have also received the heartbreaking news this week, that Andy Burnham's adorable rescue bichonpoo croisé Axel will not be joining his humans at Number Ten. I thought the law now forbade landlords to veto their tenants having pets, so why is Larry The Cat allowed to block Axel's arrival? This abhorrent cynophobia has no place in modern Britain. Dog rights are human rights!

I know Kemi Badenoch wants the Tories to appear less LibDem and more deranged, but there have to be limits.

(John Crace, The Guardian, 16 July 2026)

How many bodies must be buried in London? This city was built on corpses.

(Luke Slade, Law & Order UK, 2009)

We have also been offered the fifth iteration of Savanta's London Polling, which was fielded before Sadiq Khan was gifted an ermine by Keir Starmer. The punditariat were quick to fantasize this may open the door for Khan getting a ministerial position in the second tier of Burnham's Government. Which is obviously the last thing Burnham should consider, as Khan has become the very embodiment of Metropolitan woke conformism, relentlessly peddling all the clichés of bourgeois luxury beliefs for the benefit of the nose-ringed blue-haired hipsters who think Nottinghamians still live in caves. The poll did not cover Westminster voting intentions, but only those for the Mayoral and Assembly elections, due to be held concurrently on the Fourth of the Fifth of 2028, alongside the last local elections before the next general election. The poll now shows a significant fall of the Labour vote, though not as devastatingly catastrophic as the Borough Council elections last May, when they bagged only 27% of the vote.

If Khan decided to seek an unprecedented fourth term, the return to Instant Runoff would make it more challenging than at any previous elections. The poll's results imply that he would need at least two thirds of the second preferences from both Greens and LibDem voters, and my best educated hunch is that he should not take it for granted. Interestingly, the Green Assembly vote is in the same ballpark as in May, 20% vs 21%, but is not enough to unseat deeply entrenched Labour incumbents even in the Assembly constituencies covering Boroughs where the Greens bagged massive successes at the locals. So the poll does not predict a massive tsunami of change at the London Assembly, nothing even remotely comparable to what we witnessed in the Borough Councils three months ago. This would have been irrelevant, immaterial and inconsequential anyway, as the London Assembly is impotent by law, because exercising their very limited powers requires a two-thirds majority ready to defy the Mayor. As it is, it represents only token democracy rubberstamping the Mayor's edicts.

There is an interesting subplot here, embedded in the provisions of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026, which was originally Angela Rayner's brainchild during her first stint as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. The Act was introduced in Commons on 10 July 2025, but languished in the limbo of Parliamentary procedure for five months after Rayner had been hounded out of the Cabinet by an organised pile-on of the Fash-enabling media. It received Royal Assent two months after the Gorton and Denton by-election, Andy Burnham's initial failed attempt to return to Commons. And this is where you have to admit that Keir Starmer was not just an ineffectual beige pub bore, but could be just as pettily spiteful as Donald Trump. The final version of the Act makes it illegal for an MP to serve as Mayor, but does not extend the ban to Peers, an obvious double standard on double jobbing. You can't escape the only possible conclusion that this was designed sur mesure, to force Burnham to resign his Mayoralty if he got back in Commons, while allowing Khan to hold his while sat in the Lords, as his peerage had obviously been a done deal long before it was officially announced. Andy Burnham still has time to correct this undemocratic anomaly, and have the Act amended to a blanket ban on double jobbing, long before the next London election, but will he have the baws to do it?

On every street in every city, there's a nobody who dreams of being a somebody.

(Travis Bickle, Taxi Driver, 1976)

Jeremy's Den

01/08/2026

Just A Point Along A Line

Just A Point Along A Line