A New Dawn has broken, has it not?

Starmer’s resigned and hopefully that means the era of Starmer/McSweeney has finally run out. It was a period defined by control freakery in the Labour Party, intolerance of dissent there and more generally in society, shameful knee-bending to Israeli colonialism and a startling incompetence dealing with Trump. It wasn’t all bad, as has been pointed out NHS waiting lists have come down (I’d like to know how that happened—not another statistical trick I hope) and so has immigration (ditto). What now? Nobody really knows. I would look for one quality in Burnham—sorry, Andy—and that is clear and decisive action. Many reports emerged of Starmer’s lack of leadership (ironically suggesting he was a victim of control freakery too). Of course there will now be a month or two more of the psycho-drama as other candidates run round the PLP pleading their case, part of which they will say is ‘We mustn’t just have another coronation like Gordon Brown’s (mea culpa on that one). I hope, as I have suggested before that the Labour Party has a right old ding dong –about Ideas. The party will be the centre of attention for a while—a good time to tell people what it’s for. Many voters seem to have forgotten.

If Burnham wants to rebalance the economy as his first step to winning back the 'Red Wall' I suggest he looks at changing Treasury rules on 'cost benefit analysis' which tends to allocate more public funding to the south of England, where it draws in (or do we have to say 'crowds in' these days?) more private money. At an event the other week in York about developing the North I asked Lord (Jim) O'Neill (a former government advisor to Tories and Labour) whether he agreed this should change. He did. Once again, vindication!