THE CASUAL COUP by @PronouncedAlva
On the campaign trail with Andy Burnham:
This is a campaign on several levels. Burnham has โa tough fightโ against Reform, as I hear him say repeatedly while watching him door-knocking. But heโs also fighting two other implied contests: with a Labour selectorate of MPs and members, who soon may well have to decide whether to nominate or vote for him to replace Keir Starmer; and with the electorate at large, who soon could find themselves choosing between Burnham and Nigel Farage in a general election. This is a tight by-election against Farageโs Reform, but Burnham is already being scrutinised as a prospective prime minister.
With three weeks to go until polling day, Burnham has allowed me to accompany him while campaigning in Makerfield, an invitation extended only to the New Statesman.
He says this by-election is the last chance to stop Reform. โIf I just put it in the terms of Greater Manchester, I feel weโre on the cusp. If we donโt pull it back now, I think something changes.โ On Wigan Council, Labour lost all of the seats it was defending to Reform in May. โThatโs a very big statement. You canโt just see that and minimise it.โ When people ask him โWhy this moment?โ results like that are why.
As one of Andy Burnhamโs closest allies put it to me: โWhatever happens, this will be in the history books.โ
Cover photo by Niall Hodson for the New Statesman
โI donโt think thereโs a farmer alive whoโs Labour anymore.โ
Jeremy Clarkson tells Times Radio thereโs only one party doing very well with young farmers and it's Reform UK.
@JeremyClarkson | @KateEMcCann
Fascism on the right. Communism on the left. Ancient antisemitic conspiracies seemingly everywhere. Tariffs. War in Europe. Gilded Age corruption. So many bad ideas re-emerging all at once.
Why? https://t.co/pwzZJWBe5J
Japanese Defense Minister Koizumi Shinjiro, a graduate of Columbia University, spoke in English at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.
He told Pete Hegseth that he feels US security commitments to the region are "unwavering."
Letโs make tomorrowโs historic parade fun, memorable and inclusive for everybody.
Enjoy the moment, look after one another, and please take your litter home!
Thank you to all the workers who are making the parade possible. See you there! #COYG
Even those who disagree vehemently with Sir Tony Blair must admit that his ability to force, single-handedly, detailed policy-driven essays out of the three likely candidates of a Labour leadership election is beyond impressive
You were in power. Your heartlessness and incompetence are now confined to opposition, and if we are not all happy with of the current governmentโs record, we can at least be grateful for that.
If @Conservatives were in power, these strikes simply wouldnโt be happening.
Thatโs because we'll add doctors to the list of professions banned from striking. Just like police officers and members of the Armed Forces.
Our health should never be held ransom by unions.
Labour wonโt win Britainโs future by fighting old wars or recycling old orthodoxies.
Nor will it do so through technocratic detachment from the lives people actually live.
The answers must be new, but they must also be Labour.
Response to Tony Blair ๐๐ป
https://t.co/Et4SKHmsHw
It's hard to argue with this from Tony Blair:
"Governments which succeed don't start with a personality contest. Or a political question - as in how do we "save the country" from Reform. They start with an idea, a project, a governing purpose"
"Back to the 70s?"
Former PM Sir Tony Blair questions Andy Burnham's comments on '40 years of neoliberalism', and says there 'wasn't enough explanation' by Sir Keir Starmer why Jeremy Corbyn's Labour leadership was wrong.