To be sick to death of Andy Burnham already

[Viviennemary]

I'm sick to death already of seeing Andy Burnham and hearing his voice. And he isnt even PM yet. Come back Keir Starmer. All is forgiven. I dont know how I'm going to suffer 3 or four more years of him in charge. Playing the part of the working class hero who is going to save the country. Give me strength.

That last line has cropped up a few times on threads for other politicians and not much was said.

It’s all about the buses, stupid!

Andy Burnham will scrap Sir Keir Starmer’s plan for digital ID cards, pledging to redirect the resources towards “people’s everyday priorities”.

Burnham, who will become prime minister on Monday, has said he wants his government to focus on giving power to communities rather than “hoarding it in Whitehall”.

Scrapping ID cards is part of a package of measures he is preparing to unveil during his first weeks in No 10, aimed at tackling the cost of living.

Mr Burnham and his team are also drawing up plans to give children aged 11 to 16 free bus travel and to cut household energy bills.

I’ve seen it said by Labour supporters many times about particular Tories and Tories as a whole. I doubt it got reported. But then I don’t think it’s reportable. It’s unpleasant but just vulgar. No side’s better than another in that respect.

I just dislike the holier-than-thou attitude of many on the left about this (and many other things).

Yes it’s been on a few threads. If it happens there someone can say it about Burnham.

He’s promising the biggest political change in 40 years and his flagship idea seems to be free bus passes for children. It’s exactly what you’d expect from a provincial mayor. Oh, plus the devolution obsession which will involve transferring a lot of power down to administrations run by other parties.

I’m glad digital ID is in the bin. There’s a few other Starmer policies that could go with it.

Yep and it's not going to change.

It does - British politics has gotten too impatient and too focussed on personal attributes.

I couldn’t give a shit, for example, how many kids Boris has, how messy his hair is, or what wallpaper he had.

Not interested.

I similarly don’t care how old Rayner was when she had a baby, or what house she lived in at the time.

I didn’t believe we needed a change in government when the Tories were changing their leaders every time the wind changed, and not bothered now either.

And yet he's (pretty much) already the PM!

Had he said how he'll afford this?

Well sorry to point out that the money for improved services has to come from somewhere. What do you suggest?

Ok, so he's going to ease the "cost of living crisis" by getting us to pay more in tax.....

Oh come on…
Honestly who would want to be PM?

AB.

Third time lucky, for him, at least.

Have you?

Cameron wasn't responsible for Brexit. The electorate voted for it. Are you saying we were wrong to have a referendum because you dislike the result? This country needs to get more democratic. Ireland and Switzerland and other countries regularly have referendum. They don't have sissy fits like the uk remainders. Get over it. I think we should have more referendum.

Johnson has been criticised over covid. He threw everything he'd got at it. We were the first country in Europe to roll out the vaccine. You probably don't remember the relief of having the vaccine and knowing you weren't going to die. I do. Even then, good old Ursula tried to prevent him from rolling out the vaccine ahead of Europe. Forgot that bit didnt you. I suppose you would have preferred the scenes in the USA where people were allowed to die and corpses were shoved into refrigerated lorries on the corner of the street. Trump was particularly happy to let black people die. For some reason, American people were happy with that and voted him back again.

We are in greater debt now than we were under truss. The bond markets are charging us higher interest rates than under truss because we are an increasingly bad risk. The amount we are paying out in benefits is way out of proportion to our income.

The most worrying thing is, that Rachel from accounts is the best that the current government has to offer. Remember how the markets slumped when she had a tearful day in the commons.

I was no fan of keir. But he did his best. Global politics are very bad at the moment and he tried to do his best for Britain on global issues. He was also boring. However, his back benchers are not intelligent or experienced people. Hence, not one of them is capable of being prime minister, not even slimy little wes streeting.

Andy isn't setting the world alight. He also seems a bit boring. Time will tell. But it's a bad sign that out of a government of over 400 mps, not one of them has leadership qualities. Plus, allegedly, the best person they have capable of being Chancellor is Ed Balls - who also isn't an MP.

Democracy means accepting the will of the majority. Not calling them bloody dense because you don't like the result.

I was just wondering if it was Mrs Burnham.
Or one of his labour groupies like Louise Haigh, sacked for incompetence, Big Ange, resigned due to corruption, or the dopey deputy prime minister with a big smile on her face.

A bit like Animal Farm, where a nastier pig took power after the coup against the farmer. The second pig made life much harder for the ordinary animals. They had less say in the running of the farm. They didn't choose the second pig.
There was also a pig obsessed with building windmills, that turned out to be a disaster.
And don't forget poor old Boxer, whose retirement date kept moving until he was eventually sold to the knacker man. The equivalent of introducing a euthanasia bill...to get rid of unwanted oldies. Oh wait..

Yes. I do know the pigs names, old major, napoleon, snowball, squealer, Benjamin the donkey. Clover the horse. Don't forget those vicious attack dogs who had been lurking all along, could they have been called Lisa and Bridget? And Molly the mare who skipped the country for a better lifestyle. I think she went to Dubai or Monaco. Somewhere with lower taxes anyway.

He might of served Central Manchester well but it didnt spread out any further, in Salford we haven't seen any benefit of King of the North, pot holed roads, illegal immigrants being put in b+bs, hotels, first time buyer homes being snapped up and turned into HMOs. Gentrification of Salford Quay and Ordsall.Tried to force the clean air zones so we would be charged to drive off our driveways, wasted millions before it was rightly shelved, oh but we pay £2 bus fare along as we don't leave the area. You might miss him but I definitely wont. King of the North? Legend in his own mind.

Think you will find that it was Blair who introduced the idea that thick people should go to university. Hence the introduction of 'mickey
mouse' degrees.

Blair introduced student loans.

Let's talk about good old Nick Clegg. Noone ever mentions him. Mp for Sheffield Hallam. He won by a huge majority. He campaigned saying he would abolish student loans when he came to power. Of course, he didn't expect to come to power. Once he became deputy prime minister he was part of the decision making in raising student loans to 9k a year. He could have argued to raise them by less. He didn't.

Scrapping ID cards will save money!

Well, it won’t be from welfare cuts.

And increased taxation will soon really start to bite the lower earners.

You can’t really blame Burnham for the migrant crisis… He wasn’t actually “King of the North”. He was a metro mayor with fairly limited powers.

Maybe not but allowing hotels, b+bs and HMOs to used as housing in this area, nowhere near his house tho. I know he wasnt King of the North, so why is he referred to as that? It's embarrassing and strokes his already over exaggerated ego

I doubt the money was there anyway. There’s a gap between vibe and vague pledges and actual funding.