Mon, 18 May 2026 19:00:34 +0100WeeblyMon, 18 May 2026 17:44:00 GMThttp://www.colinchallen.org/blog/at-last-change-pt48Well that’s that then. The Great Northern Labour Hope For Change (GNLHFC) Andy Burnham has declared that he, if elected to the top job, would not change Rachel Reeves’ ‘fiscal rules.’ This commitment it seems has slightly assured the bond markets that Britain is not about to go down a totally barmy socialist path and consequently today’s government borrowing costs dipped very slightly. Already, and not I think surprisingly, Andy (it’s always ‘Andy’ these days) is revealed to be a true ‘realpolitic’ politician, that is someone who believes it is necessary to adopt the conditions of the present, rather than challenge them, to make real progress. As the next few weeks unfold I predict that Andy will sound increasingly ambiguous about what exactly he would change vis-a-vis the current leadership’s approach.

We could perhaps ask if he intends not to change Reeves fiscal rules whether he would leave her in place as Chancellor should he become PM. This is a signal the bond markets will wait for before delivering their big verdict and perhaps in the next week or two a journalist will ask Andy that very question. In other words, he is going to have to get specific about what he means by ’change,’ that elusive vision which bedevils those whom Nye Bevan once alluded to: ‘I know that the right kind of leader for the Labour Party is a desiccated calculating machine who must not in any way permit himself to be swayed by indignation.’

Well, we no longer talk about calculating machines, it’s all artificial intelligence now and all calculations will be parsed to the n-th degree by a set of algorithms situated in the ‘bond markets’ which do not (for example) include the long-term consequences of child poverty as a quantum to be parsed. Perhaps in a new sense we should now be asking Ted Heath’s old question: Who governs Britain? Leave it to Farage to answer and it will even more be City Wide Boys. Andy needs to challenge Farage: who exactly is in control, the bond markets or democracy?

]]>Mon, 18 May 2026 07:05:47 GMThttp://www.colinchallen.org/blog/street-parties-this-sundayThis coming Sunday there will be dancing in the streets and late-night parties as the UK celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Brexit vote. What a great day it will be as we recall how much ‘control’ we have taken back! And all that extra money being spent on the NHS as a direct result of not coughing up billions to Brussels! And of course not having to cope with millions of Turkish immigrants. On that last point we do now seem to have many more Turkish barbers then ten years ago. I wonder if Nigel Farrago has an explanation for that? Anyway, we should take stock of all the benefits we’ve enjoyed since leaving the EU, so I asked ChatGTP what I think was a neutral question: What have been the economic impacts of Brexit? This was the answer -
 
‘Brexit has imposed a persistent, measurable drag on the UK economy, with most high‑quality studies now converging on a long‑run GDP loss of roughly 5–10% compared with remaining in the EU. This impact comes through four main channels: lower trade, reduced investment, weaker productivity, and changes in migration flows.’

Is it too soon to talk about this failed experiment? I don’t think so, although in our current febrile political atmosphere it is clearly a risk, and one which Wes Streeting has contemplated. The question is how can people who voted to leave the EU consider the possibility of being wrong now reconfigure their position without a huge loss of face, not least when the snake-oil salesmen (they/them) of Reform UK offer simplistic solutions to all our woes?
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The whole Brexit thing was illegitimate  - the way the referendum was constructed, sold to the public and eventually negotiated. The complexities of it were never properly explored and lo and behold—we’re all now worse off. Party on!
]]>Fri, 15 May 2026 07:48:59 GMThttp://www.colinchallen.org/blog/one-to-watch-maybeThe residents of Makerfield will soon be waking up with the desire to go on a long holiday abroad. The by-election there is shaping up to be, no hyperbole, historic. That is if Andy Burnham is permitted by Starmer’s lieutenants on the National Executive Committee to be Labour’s candidate. I know Starmer himself has publicly said he won’t stand in Burnham’s way but I imagine his acolytes on the NEC may feel differently, possibly even with echoes of McSweeney pinging around their grey cells. If Burnham does stand, it will clearly be the first by-election the incumbent PM would rather lose. I wonder how party staff will cope? Will they pull their punches as happened in the 2019 general election when they didn’t want Corbyn to win? Reform UK will obviously throw everything they’ve got at it, which means there’ll need to be a close eye kept on their billionaire-backed expenses. And now in this new world of multi-party politics, what about the Greens, who actually did see off Reform in the Gorton and Denton by-election? It will be a test for Zack Polanski as to whether he wishes to be cast as the progressive vote splitter and let Reform in. But he may think another Green success will put his party even more to the fore, even on a route to No.10. So for every resident of Makerfield there will soon be 10 party workers and 12 journalists, and doormats will be six inches deep in unread leaflets. It could all signal a massive if messy end to a long period of political indigestion.

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]]>Thu, 14 May 2026 17:28:14 GMThttp://www.colinchallen.org/blog/get-on-with-it2214123The Labour Party’s psycho-drama continues with every act given full attention by the media, not least the BBC. Who is supporting whom for the leadership, who is pouring cold water on the whole idea of replacing Starmer, who is whispering anonymously in dark corridors (obviously we’ll never know) and who will wield the knife? Queues will be forming outside William Hill as punters place bets on their favourite donkey. But little—if any—attention is being paid to polishies, as Tony Benn might have said. The current favourite, Andy Burnham seems to be ahead of the field (now with a selection contest and then a by-election to win) but apart from some unappreciative comments about the bond markets a while back, I’m not quite sure how he would address the dearth of radicalism of this Labour government, whose massive majority seems cowed by an invisible hand. Will Burnham start the ball rolling on our calamitous privatised water industry and start by reining in the undeserved bonuses of its hopeless executives? Will he tackle (or any leadership candidate) the sins of private equity? Will he unequivocally condemn the genocide of the Palestinians perpetrated by Israel and act accordingly? Will he examine wealth taxes as opposed to income taxes?  Will he (or they) introduce proportional representation, acknowledging that that is what the collapse of the two-party duopoly demands (and maybe the only way to stop the Faragist bandwagon)? Will he (or they) even consider arrangements for tactical voting at the next general election to halt the march of the Farage Shirts? Or, as is entirely possible, will prevailing old party political tribalism crush such sensible approaches to the new realities of multi-party politics? I have to ask. My vote, as an affiliated trade union member (rtd) in any forthcoming Labour Party leadership contest depends on the answers!

]]>Tue, 12 May 2026 13:43:56 GMThttp://www.colinchallen.org/blog/whats-your-greatest-weaknessIt takes Churchillian grit to face the nation and say ‘I’m not shit.’ But to quote that eloquent statesman from over the pond, ‘Starmer is no Churchill.’ I, on behalf of this blog’s readership watched the PM’s speech yesterday, delivered to a surreally enthusiastic crowd of Party HQ staff (’We clapped until our hands bled, please don’t give us P45s’) and selected journalists. It was a weird scene, you’d think Starmer’s standing ovation even before he’d uttered a word was in recognition of a great electoral victory. Anyway, he got on with his usual boilerplate stuff about his values, his hard pressed siblings, his working class background and an attempt at filling out that phrase much overused by politicians who’ve just acquired a big fat lip ‘I get it.’ ‘How do you get it mate?’ might well be the response from an ever more pugilistic electorate which has lost interest in tough but empty rhetoric and wishes to see tangible results not worthless slogans dressed up as bankable commitments. Perhaps Sir Keir has some bankable commitments coming up in the King’s Speech tomorrow. It may be a more lifesaving speech from the throne than usual.
 
It may help of course if Starmer employed somebody with actually good advice. I couldn’t help but read a story on Yorkshire Live about an ’expert’s’ suggested answer to an awkward job interview question:
 
‘They advised: "When a job interviewer asks, 'What's your biggest weakness?', interpret the question in practical terms rather than in terms of personality faults.” To illustrate the point, they continued: "Sometimes I let people take advantage of me', or 'I take criticism personally' are bad answers. 'I'm too honest' or 'I work too hard' even if they believe you, make you sound like you'll be irritating to be around or you'll burn out." The expert suggested saying something along the lines of – "my biggest weakness with regards to this job is, I have no experience with [company's database platform]" or "I don't have much knowledge about [single specific aspect of job] yet, so it would take me some time to learn". This approach acknowledges a genuine job-related weakness but one that is 'understandable' and portrays you as someone who is candid, willing to learn, and committed to self-improvement.’ ( 'Correct' answer to give in job interview when asked 'what's your biggest weakness' )

So Keir—stop blathering on about ‘getting it’ (Getting WHAT for God's sake?) and be honest. Give us three (or more) reasons why you’re not up to the job and what exactly you’re going to do about it. Something like ‘I need to learn how to deliver policies that work for ordinary people and stop telling ordinary people how ordinary I am.’ Or show people I will not say one thing and do another, such as supporting the ‘Two state solution’ for Palestine and at the same time turning a blind eye to Israel’s genocide (in the belief that nobody else has noticed it).’ Or . . .   (suggestions on a postcard to the Chief Whip please).

]]>Mon, 11 May 2026 11:53:31 GMThttp://www.colinchallen.org/blog/a-simpleton-in-wonderlandA clickbait headline from a Guardian story—which may well have been written by Polly Toynbee but since I couldn’t be bothered to read it I don’t know—suggested Starmer should be given time to deliver on his promises. He himself after all has said his government is embarked on a ten year plan to make things right. There is undoubtedly some weight to this proposition, if of course one can take the full meaning of the word ‘promises’ at face value. I for one never believed that the tanker of austerity could be turned round in a couple of years. Labour has oft picked up the rotten baton of a Tory government. Or indeed a war. Restoring stability is supposedly one part of Starmer’s recovery plan (as it was Rishi Sunak’s), as well as restoring market credibility, restoring international respect. Who could argue with any of that? Until one digs into what these ambitions entail, and what emerges is the old Labour story: we will be better managers of the Establishment that got us here in the first place. It has to be said that the one Labour leader who didn’t quite follow this form was Attlee but he was elected in almost unique circumstances. Curiously, the desperate financial straits the UK faced post WWII could be met head on by the government without reference to bond markets, thanks to the Anglo-American Loan Agreement. In beating Nazism, it was debt that won it, and people understood that.

Now the enemy is so amorphous nobody really understands what it is. Indeed, I read today that the UK ‘owns’ $865 billion of the US’s $39 trillion national debt. Everybody owes each other. By way of contrast, the UK national debt is £2.9 trillion. 8% of that sum is what the government owes itself (and pays interest on) thanks to quantitative easing. (Thanks to ChatGTP for sourcing these figures) Although what the UK government owns of US debt is not significant in the context of overall US debt, at current exchange rates it is getting on for £637 billion, around one fifth of our national debt. I might be economically simple minded, but if some of that could be redeemed it would reduce our national debt significantly and the straightjacket we’re told we should always wear these days might be taken off. And that’s not to mention the QE debt the government owes to itself—cancel it!

Delving into this subject of debt, it seems there has already been a ‘viral social media post’ making much the same point about UK held US debt. It’s helpful to read a conclusion to that discussion (posted last January at UK Holds $888.5bn in US Debt, But Who Really Owns It? - British Brief ):

‘While the $888.5 billion figure [slightly different to the figure I mentioned before] is technically correct for US debt held in British accounts, it encompasses assets owned by the UK government, British private sector, and a multitude of international clients of UK-based financial services firms. The viral post's simplified narrative obscures this crucial financial nuance.’

So some of this sum will not be British at all—just money that’s flowed through the City of London, flattering our economy without I suspect adding anything of substantial value to it. That still doesn’t alter the fact that we’re paying interest on QE money, a policy Reform UK opposes and an idea which needs proper examination. In the sense that that interest is essentially being paid back to the government, it is its role in boosting self-flagellating fears of the ‘debt burden’ that needs looking at.

My conclusion, and I repeat I am economically simple minded, is that calculations about what our debt actually is will never provide a simple figure. The whole thing is peppered with caveats. But what is clear is that the world runs on credit, and if as this government hopes we encounter ‘economic growth’ we will inevitably encounter more debt—the very debt that fuels economic growth.

Meanwhile I’m going to look next at Starmer’s Victory Next Time speech to see how everything’s going to change beyond our wildest dreams for the better.

]]>Sun, 10 May 2026 07:45:45 GMThttp://www.colinchallen.org/blog/changeNever mind the ‘Red Wall’ constituencies Labour previously lost. Now we have the Red Fortresses crumbling into dust, councils like Barnsley and Wakefield which have been held by Labour ever since local government reorganisation in 1974. Things are normally bad for governments in mid-term local elections but what happened last Thursday surpasses all previous expressions of voter angst. It may well be that by the time of the next general election some of this mood may have receded and we shouldn’t forget that a great many people still voted Labour, but for the time being we must assume that the party has zero momentum and like the Liberals in the 1920s is set to be something of a rump in search of a revival.

The question of the day now is who will replace Starmer. One of his former ministers, Catherine West MP has thrown down the gauntlet to the Parliamentary Labour Party and is seeking to be a stalking horse (not to mix metaphors) to flush out (oh dear) a Cabinet minister with the gravitas, communication skills, etc., etc. to take on the Dear Leader. From what I’ve heard of her thinking she probably has the slick Wes Streeting in mind. But of course practically anybody has more gravitas and charisma than Starmer who is about as useful as a broken spring. Others will be spending this weekend weighing up their chances. Angela Rayner has obvious ambition and may well connect with some Reform voters. Defence Secretary John Healey has been mentioned by some but I doubt he could change Labour’s fortunes very much, if at all. The return of Ed Miliband is touted by some, and perhaps if he could rise above being bitten once, twice shy he could regenerate interest in Labour’s slightly more radical appeal. He would naturally have to put up with the same right wing anti-Semitic tripe from the bulk of the British media he faced when he was leader. But in an all-or-nothing game with three years to run he could go for broke and actually do something radical.
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Meanwhile Starmer has reinvigorated his team with the appointment of Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman to a couple of pretend jobs. Why does he keep looking backwards? Maybe he’s looking for a new role for Mandelson too. Perhaps as a prison librarian somewhere? 

]]>Tue, 05 May 2026 21:32:47 GMThttp://www.colinchallen.org/blog/get-rid-of-the-wormsBy a happy coincidence Starmer and Emmanuel Macron are about the same height, so our PM has always looked happy in photo-ops with the French President. (I know from personal experience how touchy Starmer is about his height.) Which is a curious way to introduce the question of who will be France’s next President in one year’s time and indeed who will be our next PM somewhat earlier? It seems French polls favour the hard-right National Rally’s 30 year old Jordan Bardella. However, the Daily Telegraph reported (25/11/25):

‘Critics . . question whether Mr Bardella – who has never attended university, run a ministry or held a job outside the RN [National Rally], apart from a brief stint working with his father – could lead a country. “The president must answer to every question. He must be like ChatGPT. We vote for ChatGPT kind of guys,” said Philippe Moreau Chevrolet, a political communications expert at Sciences Po. “The question is: are the French angry and bored enough to vote for literally anybody outside the system? The French may moan a lot, but populism still struggles to take root here.”’

Well, they voted for Macron didn’t they? Albeit he was a bit of an insider/outsider kind of chap experienced in government but elected on the back of a new party. Will Bardella appeal in his own right or is he just a stalking horse for Marine Le Pen? Or could it be that we will see a vote against gerontocracy? The best known leftist in the race, Melanchon is a Corbyn-style septuagenarian. Is it time for the baby boomers (born between 1945-1965) to be swept away?  I think age may play a part—considering the success of some other youthful candidates lately. Perhaps voters are turning against the old guard. Starmer - born in 1962—may be at the young end of the baby boomer scale but he’s clearly— no offence boomers—lost his mojo (if he ever had one in the first place). This ageist business may play a part, and I wouldn’t condemn young people wanting rid of old white and very often rich men running our affairs.

*WORMS: I claim credit for the creation of  a new acronym - White Old Rich Men]]>Sun, 03 May 2026 18:06:55 GMThttp://www.colinchallen.org/blog/spot-the-real-terroristStarmer’s authoritarian tendencies become clearer every day and have been boosted by the anti-Semitic attacks in London last week to the extent that he is now considering banning pro-Palestinian marches. These in his mind, or at the behest of Zionist groups, represent an ‘underlying cause’ of the surge in anti-Semitism in the UK. Nothing to do with what inspires the marches in the first place. Of course not! It seems that if marchers chant ‘from the river to the sea Palestinians will be free’ that can only mean the marchers want to see the annihilation of all Jews in Israel. Starmer’s statements are ill informed and at odds with the truth which is far less Manichean then he appears to think. However, I’m really sure that he will have paid attention to Netanyahu’s 2024 statement, which I have just watched, where Bibi says he wants control, indeed sovereignty, of all the land between ‘the river and the sea.’ Does that make Bibi a terrorist (and those who carry out his orders)? Yes it does. But Starmer is not a multi tasker and he can’t hold two thoughts in his brain before breakfast. I hope the Labour Party is given a wake-up call this coming Thursday, and the tool—sorry the toolmaler’s son—is given the old heave-ho pronto. I’m sure I’ve not said anything inflammatory here, but should it come to court I’d like to opt for a jury trial. Oh, hang on a sec . . . 

P.S. And if Starmer goes it necessarily follows that he should take a large clutch of his cronies with him.

]]>Thu, 30 Apr 2026 17:53:18 GMThttp://www.colinchallen.org/blog/head-scratching+Trying to make sense of the latest abhorrent case of anti-Semitic violence, this time in London is fraught with difficulty, not least since it is reported that the Somali-born British citizen who carried out the attack was known to authorities and experienced mental health issues. It seems to me that anybody who goes into the street to stab complete strangers must prime facie have mental health issues. In this case it is suggested that the perpetrator had links with some Iranian group. What is now becoming a standard response from Jewish spokespeople interviewed by the BBC is that the ‘underlying causes’ of anti-Semitism must be addressed. The only underlying cause that ever seems to be mentioned are the ‘hate marches’ also known as the pro-Palestinian marches which it seems should be banned. As always, anti-Semitism is conflated with opposition to the Israeli state’s equally abhorrent behaviour towards Palestinians. Jewish protestors in the streets of Golders Green where the latest attacks took place have taken to calling Keir Starmer ’Jew Harmer’ and a traitor. How quickly the memory fades. Not so long ago he was leading the campaign, orchestrated by his Svengali McSweeny to oust the so-called anti-Semite Jeremy Corbyn. As I say, it’s hard to make sense of all this. One thing is for sure though: the underlying cause of all these troubles is the idiocy of the one true God having so many faces. Surely it’s time for a second coming, although I’m not sure that would resolve very much either. Meanwhile, an Israeli government minister invited British Jews to go and live there where they ‘will be protected.’ Hardly a safe bet.
 
+Perhaps we should look to the United States for some sanity.* The man who undoubtedly (maybe not deliberately) propelled Trump into the White House the first time round, former FBI director James Comey is being pursued by Trump’s Justice (sic) Department for an Instagram post of Comey’s of some sea shells on a beach which were arranged to read ‘86/47.’ Apparently this can be read to mean assassinate the 47th President of the United States. So Comey faces being charged with plotting to kill Trump. The absurdity of this, regardless of whether you think Comey is a nice person shows that something has laced the water and I suspect it will be difficult to flush out. Anything you say may be taken down in evidence and misinterpreted until the cows come home. Thank heavens we live in the UK where things are more sensible and free speech is policed. Yes, I heard that oxymoron on the radio this morning.
 
* Only joking. Comey it was of course who said he was looking again into Hillary Clinton’s emails during her bid for the Presidency.
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