Police State UK"What #Burnham was describing here felt more significant than the relocation of staff. This No 10 North would have specific responsibility for the "biggest council housebuilding programme since the postwar period", he said, raising some questions about the role of the Ministry of Housing and perhaps suggesting that a wider shakeup of the machinery of government is in the offing."
"The third objection is political-economic, and it is the most serious. It is that the coalition required to deliver this agenda does not yet exist, that 40 years of #privatisation and labour market change have hollowed out the constituencies on which a programme of this scale would depend. The objection is partly correct: the coalition is not yet built. But this is a description of the political work required, not a counter-argument."
Claire McNabAndy #Burnham has chosen his #Blairite former colleague #James Purnell as his chief of staff. 🤮
No surprise that the Blairism is winning out over his #Manchesterism. But still, 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
"High and volatile #energy prices squeeze households while generating windfall profits at the top of the supply chain. #Water companies extract while services deteriorate. #Housing supply is managed for margin as a generation is locked out."
"It is the supply-side equivalent of the pre-2008 financial regime: a framework that monitors symptoms while the architecture that produces them goes unchallenged."
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/economy/2026/05/the-case-for-manchesterism
Adam DallianceBurnham's team have a plan of some sort coming in a book here described in the New Stateman ($ refresh in firefox readermode to skip paywall)
"The Productive State"
They do seem to have some grasp of what's been going wrong for 40 years and why the state and the working class have been impoverished and indebted while the billionaires became trillionaires just from passive income.
The solution?
"The institution to rebuild the supply side is the public corporation: operationally independent, commercially mandated, borrowing in its own name against its own revenue streams, delivering investment at lower cost and priced progressively."
It's a pretty good article really. I am skeptical that it's really anything like the scale of change needed to reverse the flow of wealth from state and workers to the elite classes but maybe that's just a question of doing it as scale then?
It's a pretty good article anyway.
Richard Michael Blaberhttps://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/21/burnham-ally-to-unveil-ambitious-plan-to-reverse-decades-of-privatisation; https://www.mainstreamlabour.org/publications/the-productive-state. See this: https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2026/jun/03/what-does-andy-burnham-mean-by-more-public-control-of-water-and-energy-he-is-too-vague. #Burnham is FAR too vague, @ChrisMayLA6! As for #mainstream #Labour & #Manchesterism, they won't save the #LabourParty or the #country!
Simon VarwellAussies will be wondering why Andy Burnham's political philosophy is just staying in bed all day. #Manchesterism
TinDrum'the essay – and Burnham himself...argues for a framework for greater state intervention to protect the public from soaring costs and from picking up the bill for failing private companies'
#manchesterism #ukPol #democraticSocialism #somethingInTheWind
GrumpyOldFart“Zöe Bread shows us that ‘Manchesterism’ is neoliberalism”
by Cameron Baillie in The Canary
“Zoë Bread’s investigation into property development company Renaker and its boss’ links with Burnham is a stellar case in point. Bread picks apart the housing reality beneath Burnham’s mayoral tenure.
Those investigations repeatedly surfaced the façade of ‘Burnhamism’, ‘Manchesterism’ or whatever you call ‘it’. This is familiar territory for Zöe Bread, and important now — for us all”
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/2026/05/27/zoe-bread-manchesterism-andy-burnham/
#Press #SocialMedia #UKPolitics #Burnham #Labour #Manchesterism #Neoliberalism #Makerfield #ByElection
