Alex Kemble-Brown

[Aaron Newbury @AJNewbury94]

I have to admit, Burnham's speech comes off as a bit naïve. To be blunt, it smacks of a man who's grown extremely used to not having much scrutiny and to being the centre of local power and attention for nearly a decade.

Him not taking questions at the end is just as telling. Burnham will effectively become Prime Minister by default: no contest inside his own party, no general election mandate for the changes he wants, and of course no scrutiny from the press.

His entire speech was, in effect, "why can't everyone be more like me" and yet it announced almost nothing. Nothing on cost, nothing on how any of it actually gets done. Just a collection of soundbites, and painfully political ones at that, with no substance behind them.

"A circuit-breaker." "Good growth in every postcode." All of it sounds lovely (let's do the good things and not the bad ones). Nobody's ever thought of that before!! But… how?

Being a Mayor is a fundamentally different job to being Prime Minister. A Mayor spends money, much of it handed to him by central government, and never has to weigh one department's misery against another's. The job he's warming himself up for is the one that has to make those trade-offs, and nothing today suggested he's reckoned with that.

He reaches, as these people always do, towards the idea of a country "lifted back up", homes built, places regenerated, industry revived, pride in place, etc etc. There are models for this. You can run massive public housing programmes, but historically they're delivered through expensive, highly centralised, government-run schemes. Singapore being the obvious example. What they are not delivered by is building a second centre of government.

What Burnham is really offering is top-down socialism with a smile. Devolution on steroids doesn't shrink the state, it bloats it. A "No.10 North" doesn't move power closer to people, it just builds more state, in a second place, at additional cost. It's more process, dressed up as a radical idea nobody's ever had before.

More and more, political speeches are just a hodge-podge of pleasant noise. We will do things, lots of things, good things. We'll make sure things you like have "social value", we'll make you proud of [insert thing to be proud of], we'll deliver [insert policy that sounds really nice].

But the problems this country faces are enormous. Law and order is eroding, and rebuilding it means serious money for police, courts and prisons. The state grows more expensive by the year while the workforce paying for it keeps shrinking. We have an energy crisis and a poverty crisis, conflicts multiplying abroad and armed forces begging for cash, and more than a million young people out of work - on top of housing nobody can afford, child poverty, and a generation that feels detached from the society around it.

You don't fix any of that with a slogan and a second postcode for the guy in charge.

Every Mayor thinks his city is the best, and Mayors, almost uniquely in British politics, are rarely questioned. Today we all saw what nearly a decade of that does to a man. And thanks to his refusal to so much as take a question, we've had no chance to hold a single one of his plans up to the light.

[Alex Kemble-Brown @alexkemble_3]

@MaxRadwan @Jamiebrown1987

[Alex Kemble-Brown @alexkemble_3]

@Tony_Scott11 Long throws 🤣 grifter.. Maybe you was watching Brentford by mistake

[Alex Kemble-Brown @alexkemble_3]

@LeGrove Needs too take that one on the chin and stop playing him. Chamkh was actually better

[Mo @MoArsenal86]

We have lost:

Havertz
Ødegaard
Saka

It’s Matchday 2.

[chief 🏆 @aliladiere]

Always funny to me that rivals want Arteta sacked for not delivering trophies. Surely you want him to stay here so he continues not delivering?

Truth is they all hate how good he’s made us so they are desperate to see him go. You ain’t slick Jamie.

[Alex Kemble-Brown @alexkemble_3]

@DailyAFC @defjam Drop him instantly

[Alex Kemble-Brown @alexkemble_3]

@AccidentalP @Jamiebrown1987

[Alex Kemble-Brown @alexkemble_3]

@Jamiebrown1987 @autosport Data capabilities

[Steady @DeanoGorton]

🤔 I was wondering why Rio Ferdinand wasn't on TNT sports last night?

[Alex Kemble-Brown @alexkemble_3]

@Jamiebrown1987 @KelemenCari 😂😂😂

[Goth Chris @Goth__Chris]

Frank Warren trying to pronounce Beterbiev

[Alex Kemble-Brown @alexkemble_3]

@juasanalghaib @Jamiebrown1987

[h @htomufc]

Just don’t get how you can be so eager to fling the second yellow out but didn’t book Doku for the same thing 30 minutes prior to it, no one’s arsed about the rules, it’s the inconsistency the rules are being carried out with. They really don’t help themselves, do they?

[William (fan account) @OzilThings]

A friendly reminder that Michael Oliver didn’t give Kovacic a second yellow card for this challenge on Odegaard in this same fixture last year

Absolute CORRUPTION.

[Dicky Sam @Davolaar]

😂🤣😂🤣😂

[14 @iokmm]

"[Michael Oliver] doesn't want to have a negative impact on the game by overreacting"

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[Neil Warnock @warnockofficial]

Enjoy it lads , but enjoy it by being disciplined…

@NoelGallagher @liamgallagher

[Alex Kemble-Brown @alexkemble_3]

@Dave8001 @screenrotpod Sergio Georgini* @Jamiebrown1987