PM Andy Burham: what next for women's (and children's) rights?

Yes she has. And Starmer just suffered from lack of self reflection. The inability to see Labour’s own mistakes was another factor in being ousted.

increasing immigration by admitting the Boriswave at terrifying cost, genuflecting to Hamas and immiserating the final remaining pockets of wealth

Is there evidence that he plans to increase immigration? Though I wouldn’t be surprised if he was more vocal about supporting Palestine and less concerned about rising antisemitism in this country.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," Kemi suffers because her party will not admit to past mistakes. No-one trusts them not to repeat mistakes.

I find his Thatcher messaging too backwards looking, I don’t mind the actual aims associated with why he invokes her name but we having big tech changes coming and that’s very far from pre Thatcher.

Where he can achieve what he wants with those specific aims we’ll see.

On who else, I’m happy to give Burnham three years until a GE but then I think Kemi is strong. She’d be great, her party might be lagging so it’s a tough job to get ahead but maybe she can.

Wishing Burnham the best, but three years is not much time to do what needs to be done. His re-election prospects look tough.

Amongst other issues if he is wise he will kill conversion therapy and puberty blockers. Because if he goes into the 2029 election with those as "achievements" he will leave an open goal for the right.

Meanwhile The Greens are going portray him as a trans genocide enabler whatever he does which will leak votes another way.

@EasternStandard Burnham will only be able to do what his party will let him do - and at least half of it lives in a fantasy world. Whether he can lead them into a better place is something we'll all have to find out. At the moment I see him as the least worst political option as the Tories have imploded, Farage will do the country more damage by pandering to his mates and the greens are insane. None of that changes that Thatcher and her pals could have invested in this country - and asset stripped it instead.

That’s a lot of faith in Labour there if you think only they can avoid issues. Let’s see if Andy Burnham delivers what is expected.

Margaret Thatcher was responsible for right to buy and refusing to let councils build - which has been a disaster. The revenue from North Sea oil went on tax cuts. She sold off water and other utilities to make more tax cuts - tell anyone dealing with Thames Water or any of the water companies pumping out sewage that was a good idea.

Yes Burnham is ill-informed, but not on the damage caused by Thatcher.

And post Thatcher we've had another 21 years of tory government giving us Brexit, PPE scandals and a few other mistakes I'll remember when I've had my second cup of coffee.

Fantastic!

Eresh, I’m delighted to be providing you with a second Robert’s article then 😊:

archive.today/q7oN0

Progressives like Andy and his (retained) Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy regularly accuse their detractors of being the victims of online misinformation. The thinking goes that if only the poor, benighted impressionable souls knew the truth about how wonderful Labour are, they’d be brimming over with glee and gratitude. Large sections of the public, they claim, are being misled by wicked villains like Elon Musk stirring up ‘divisive’ lies about ‘our communities’.

But I have a horrible feeling that it may be the other way around. That it is progressives who are horribly misinformed, and by each other.

A rare insight into this syndrome was the recent appearance of Alastair Campbell on the Triggernometry podcast….

….the interview turned out to be worth my time because it exposed something quite shocking, that perhaps helps to explain the comical inappropriateness of Burnham’s prescriptions for sick Britain.

At one point, it turns out that Campbell has simply never heard of the police’s barmy Race Action Plan. He cannot accept that it is a key, current document from the College of Policing. His mind freezes and he cackles sceptically. He cannot register or retain the information. He seriously seems to assume it’s something the hosts have made up, or are exaggerating. This happens a lot in the interview, about nearly everything they discuss. Campbell, it turns out, is laughably uninformed.

… We hear a lot today about how people live in political echo chambers. But it is better to live with echoes of reality than echoes of fantasy.

…Progressives like Campbell, the BBC and Burnham have hornswoggled themselves, pulled the wool over their own eyes. It is they who are the misinformed.

This matters, because it means that Burnham cannot hope to succeed. His world view is almost comically out of true. Yes, this self-delusion is funny. But it is also terrifying.

Thank you, that was a treat. I love Gareth Roberts.

He is a very weak flavour of a man, which makes his elevation to saviour by Labour MPs all the more depressingly baffling. It’s like being tied up awaiting a terrible fate when the door bursts open and you cry, ‘Thank heavens, it’s Superman!’, when in fact it’s the bassist from the Inspiral Carpets.

A Gareth Robert’s article that posits Burnham & his political theory is out of date for modern times:

https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/07/21/andy-burnham-is-stuck-in-the-1990s/

It takes blinkers of a most peculiar kind to look at Britain in 2026 – benefits bill bringing us to the verge of bankruptcy; mass immigration, both legal and illegal, destroying the social framework of centuries; staggering rates of taxation choking any hope of economic recovery – and conclude that the problem is Margaret Thatcher. But she remains the indivisible, indigestible block in the guts of the ageing British progressive.

They can’t let Maggie go. Things are bad? It must be because of Thatcher, not the subsequent 36 years of progressive rule. In fact, in what passes for Burnham’s mind, the problem must be that her successors were not progressive enough. So he has to correct that.

This is quite frighteningly infantile when you stop to think about it. Burnham is running an ancient mental model that simply cannot be updated by new facts – Windows 3.0 in the age of Windows 11. I told you he is stranger than he seems. His amiable envelope disguises this madness. He may be strikingly inane in his tone, but he is strikingly insane in his thinking.

He has kept details of his actual plans very vague. What do we know? Apparently, he intends to take the political fight to Reform UK head on – with policies such as increasing immigration by admitting the Boriswave at terrifying cost, genuflecting to Hamas and immiserating the final remaining pockets of wealth that are keeping the entire show just barely on the road. He seems to desire the return of British Leyland, which will somehow empower the working class.

And this wonky Weltanschauung is why he cannot succeed. His in-tray is heavy with 2026 problems, and he has a 1990 mind (maybe even a 1978 mind). The first horrible exogenous atrocity of his premiership – and there will be many, things being as they are – will confront him with contemporary reality, but he will be unable to process it.

Let's try this again. Why are you against women having rights Masha? It makes you sound like an incel.

We tried very hard to watch the part of the Cabinet meeting shown on the rolling News, but it was so bloody boring I cannot imagine that Starmer is doing anything other than laughing while glugging some more beer. I would.

Antonia Romeo having a big notebook was the highlight for me. I wonder what pen she uses.

Do you know where transactivism has derived from? The hint is in the new word ‘bathrooms’ instead U.K. ‘toilets’ or ‘lavatories’. Very rich U.S. groups.

U.K. Terfs meanwhile are neither rich nor right wing.

Thankfully not Thornberry. I was afraid she’d get either LC or AG. New Lord Chancellor is Alex Norris, about whom I know very little. I’m rather hoping it’s a case of ‘better the devil you DON’T know’…

@Ereshkigalangcleg That might depend on your attitude to devolution and whether you think that Kinnock is one of the people who has benefitted from Lab opting for a PM who doesn't know most of the current PLP well enough to hand out big jobs. Pool of candidates for SoS Wales was already small (only 27 Lab MPs represent Welsh constituencies. Kinnock has been hanging around the lower ministerial ranks for a long time, which doesn't suggest huge talent.

None of my contacts in Wales have commented Several that used to be Lab supporters have defected to PC since Starmer took over, mostly out of impatience with Lab's determined one-red-size-fits-all approach - they will probably be as cynical as I am about Burnham's plans for more devolution.

Is it good news for the Welsh?

Stephen Kinnock in Cabinet doesn't strike me as good news for women, although the promotion removes him from Health.

Yvette Cooper's son is an activist, isn't he? Unless he's grown up a bit. With the increased negative coverage that groups like Bash Back are getting, I'd imagine Yvette Cooper, having such a high profile position in government, will try to distance herself from those type of views, not actively encourage them as the likes of Nadia Whittome does.

Yeah I think Burnham will be too scared to get involved, but that has advantages too.

With Phillipson still in role Conversion Therapy will push forward, but I suspect that it will get massively amended in Committee and by the Lords. So whether it gets passed in its original form remains to be seen. If we kick up enough fuss I can see it being watered down. The whole anti parent thing looks a potential disaster.

Puberty Blockers again looks likely to get through, but we shall see. We just heard the data linkage study has been delayed sadly. So we are doing crazy experiments with no reason because people are too scared to say no.
https://nitter.net/DerryBanShee/status/2079181131988058378

I think we need to look to see what the fall out from the Amnesty row is. It could be very significant and another huge own goal from the TAs.

Our advantage is the genderists are even more insane than ever and they are so aggressive that they are completely crashing their own case.

Within Labour the ground is shifting. Scottish Labour has become way more pro women, and is hammering away at the SNP. With an actual women's conference in September in Liverpool with no men as well that is significant. We have court cases against the unions like Unite also happening now.

The Greens are also charging into disaster in local government over denying women as seen in Bristol and London. That too will have impact inside Labour with local elections next May.