Burnham has won. More turmoil?

[KatiePricesKnickers]

Now Burnham has won, it will trigger a leadership contest, and if he wins, a new chancellor of the exchequer.

Surely this cannot be good for the country, or its finances?

YABU - Burnham is a true leader who will improve the UK for everyone and be a competent and respected leader.

YANBU - FFS, here we go again.

Honestly I don’t have time for this daft made up bullshit you’re talking! So I’m not responding to you any further ans you’re clearly a waste of my time and I will ignore any further attempts at rage baiting by you!

😳

@Nottodaty Everything you say is about spending money we don’t have. Neither Starmer or Burnham will face up to that. We are lacking on defence spending and some people need to take far more responsibility for themselves. We have had Starmer and others saying they want economic growth but do very little about encouraging it. We are maxed out with borrowing and repayments are getting more expensive and it’s taking nearly all our income tax take to pay it. We need to wean ourselves off this, thinking we are rich and spending is the answer. Politicians have no clue about business and promoting growth. It is definitely talk from Burnham with no “manifesto”
at all. The Emperor of Westminster is coming but he’s no new clothes! Indeed probably no clothes!

The politicians have been talking about growth for years, part of the reason that Liz Truss was elected PM was because she wanted tax cuts and back to the trickle down economy, yet she didn’t last long.
They can’t borrow anymore money, debts have to be paid back and nobody seems to have the answers. It’s all word salad and pie in the sky policies most of the time , that’s how I see it. People don’t seem to know what to do or what direction to take.

If you don't know whether things are true, it's best not to present them as fact and hope for the best.

You do know that being DPP doesn't mean being chosen because you're literally the best lawyer in the country? That being the head of the CPS doesn't make you an expert in all areas of law? That governments must seek legal counsel - advice - all the time?

Starmer has his faults but there's an awful lot of unsubstantiated silliness on this thread.

Asylum decisions being sped up, small boat crossings down significantly, people smugglers jailed, returns up, asylum hotels being closed, government finally taking the threat of high street money laundering seriously (thanks to the exposés run by the much-maligned BBC)....

It will never be enough though.

"A lie is halfway round the world before the truth has even got its boots on."

I've not seen mentioned that Starmer appears to be unliked by some other world leaders - not least Trump. Whilst DT isn’t the best, he holds the mass of power. Our influence is waning as he doesn’t rate Starmer.

Yes, I am aware that law is complex.

You miss my point. For Starmer I think it is the next step up that matters. Not being good at the current step. And most of us know people from work who are like that.

I am not a lawyer as you can likely tell. I am closer to being a toolmaker. And when I heard Starmer on telly talking about taking legal advice about UK forces boarding Russian tankers, my reaction was "oh, it's only a few articles of UNCLOS that covers that, why does he not quote them? Or at least make his legal argument. But no, he said he had taken advice. And yes, it's a potentially gray area even under UNCLOS, but for someone with his legal training it would have taken him no time at all to communicate his reasoning.

Liz Truss has entered the chat.

@furimosa Change of leader but what does “change” really mean? He’s not said what any manifesto would look like and we haven’t voted for what he thinks either! It’s disrespecting voters. It’s selfish - but many politicians are.

With respect, if Trump doesn’t rate Starmer, that’s hardly worth criticising Starmer for. Trump can’t stand anyone who isnt a bootlicker, and Starmer is clearly well respected by other, less addled, world leaders. He’s a decent has done well on the world stage, kept us out of the Iran nonsense, and been a stalwart from Ukraine. That’s why Trump doesn’t like him.

Exactly. Trump has been rude to lots of other world leaders too - it's practically a badge of honour to be insulted by him at this stage.

Trump was just angry that Starmer was reticent about getting too involved in the Iran war. Starmer seems to have good relationships with most others on the world stage.

It would be a conflict of interests for the PM to provide the government with legal advice.

There are some things where a trained lawyer should not need to take legal advice to make a decision. I personally would have put the decision re UNCLOS and the Russian tankers in that column. That is why I was surprised he took legal advice. Yes it is potentially a grey area. but there is lots of precedent. It's the same international law re drug boats at sea. It should be bread and butter to him.

No government takes legal advice from itself. The Attorney General is the government’s legal adviser. Starmer might grasp the arguments quickly though.

Has she? Hi Liz 👋

I acknowledge that. But he still holds most power. I’d expect any leader to seek to grow a cooperative relationship with him. Starmer hasn’t done that and we’re just not big enough population wise to have any other say.

One way of improving things would be for more decisions to be correct in the first place. The success rate for appeals is in the high 30s in percentage terms, which is too high imo. If more HO decisions were correct, the number of appeals would fall. I wonder if the drive to reduce the backlog of outstanding applications has resulted in staff not being adequately trained, or their decisions not being checked by senior staff.

The appeal backlog is increasing. Last year, the number of new appeals was double the number of cases determined. I wonder if there might be merit in following the process for challenging DWP decisions; it involves an interim stage ("mandatory reconsideration") in which a more senior person than the original decision maker looks at the case again. I worked in welfare rights for several years, and around 30%-40% of my cases were resolved at that stage.

Employing more judges to sit on tribunals would speed things up, too.

Governments don't need to take legal advice on everything. Especially when the PM has a Knighthood for being a lawyer.

If I was to hire a Lawyer, it would not go down well if I called them for advice on something being legal or not, and they said "let me get legal advice on that".

This.

Doubt Burnham will be better friends with Trump as he is more left leaning.

I would have liked him a lot more if he actually had made those things happen. We need to cut welfare.

Nobody can develop a sensible relationship with Trump as Trump is completely nuts. I don’t want a bootlicking Prime Minister like Farage would be, I want someone with the backbone to say no to illegal and stupid wars, and to stand by our allies like Ukraine. Starmer has done those things.