@SuellaBraverman Why do you want to take away my rights ? Because that’s what this is about , not migrants . Why can Greece turn boats back , they’re in the ECHR ? Tell me how many times in the last 50 years the ECHR has been used to preven5 removals ?
@homer4madge@russtxy@suetthatsme Now who’s making assumptions ? The families should have some self fucking awareness . Grieve their loss but don’t glorify them . How about a thought for the two men they killed ?
@TimesRadio It worked well for him in Manchester, gave his mate loans to build unaffordable housing then he buggered off to Monaco with his winnings . Meanwhile Manchesters debt boomed . What could possibly go wrong ? Is it in the manifesto ?
THE MAYORAL LOOTING ACT
They call it “streamlining planning.” How charming. One almost expects a ribbon cutting and a polite round of applause.
What it actually is, of course, is the formal upgrading of a proven local method. Andy Burnham spent nine years in Greater Manchester perfecting it. £140 million of public money, your money, lent to a favoured property developer after what can only be described as the lightest of financial glances. A helpful media firm that had earlier supplied campaign videos later collected more than £260,000 in contracts from the same authority. And a neat £1.34 billion debt mountain left sitting there like a slightly embarrassing calling card when he packed for Westminster.
Now the same gentleman proposes to hand this refined technique to every Labour mayor in England. The power to “call in” decisions. The power to overrule the local councillors who still labour under the quaint belief that they represent actual residents. Tower blocks for the connected. Dust and democratic inconvenience for everyone else.
This is not reform. This is the franchise being rolled out.
We have seen the pattern before. The quiet conversation. The timely support. The planning permission that somehow finds its way to the top of the pile. The towers rise. The public purse thins. The mayor’s future arrangements improve. Burnham has already demonstrated a certain creative approach to the public chequebook. He now seeks to issue the same creative licence across West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, the North East, the Midlands, the entire patchwork of reliable Labour fiefdoms where awkward questions tend to die of loneliness.
You do not “call in” decisions to serve the people. You call them in to serve the donors, the developers, and, most reliably of all, yourself.
We see the £140 million that walked out of Manchester. We see the £260,000 that bought influence. We see the billion pound debt mountain left behind like a souvenir.
And now we see the next chapter being written in the statute book, with the same soft smile and the same empty assurances.
@TheGNPE AMW served his country - no one’s calling for him to get security , his brother is paying for it l he can pay for his son’s as well since H thinks it’s a ‘ drop in the ocean ‘.
@andyburnham You shouldn’t be boasting about donating , do it silently . We already know about it anyway . Perhaps you can balance it against all your freebies and donations for you leadership not a leadership race . Start behaving like a PM .
@KediboneBathong@Kilted_Sailor@albieamankona@kaptere_mumbi@RoyalFamily You seem to think you know better than anyone else though . Even if they’re not coming back for the RF , even though Harry says he wants to see his family and his children to know his family ,why the UK ?They called us all racists and celebrated their freedom flight .They can FO
I’m disturbed and traumatised by that video of Israeli settlers who have chained a donkey to a moving vehicle, who is desperately limping behind until it can’t keep up anymore and they just drag it to its death. It actually made me cry, how can this terrorism continue?