Yes but it’s potentially a bit of a have cake, eat cake vibe. Do want to be PM, don’t necessarily want to take the risks that appear to be a pre requisite. Hence my point about certainty of support.
If you look back at past quotes it’s often framed as “if they urged me”
This is right. I think can’t rule out that the local elections cause a mass “screw it, we just need to change” panic.
My sense is Burnham is burnt by what happened last September - ie no MPs went “over the top” for him, although personally I’m not convinced that was ever a serious prospect - so will want certainty he is the left candidate. That’s not where the plp is rn unless im missing something.
Rachel Reeves, Chris Mcdonald, Ed Miliband, Keir Starmer. All wearing fluorescent jackets.
Great how your phone gives you memories.
It's two years to the day since Rachel Reeves told me if Labour won the general election they would send the National Audit Office in to investigate the Teesworks saga.
The authority responsible hasn't published audited accounts since then, yet nothing.
Love takeaways, love ordering food in when I’m down or busy or tired or forget to do a food shop, love the luxury of someone bringing me food I wouldn’t probably go and get myself and certainly wouldn’t be able to cook. Imagine that applies to a lot of ppl tbh
Oh 100%.
At the risk of annoying both my colleagues and my contacts, the less time I spend at Manchester airport the happier I am. I get there early out of instinctive anxiety, rather than because I think I’ll have a good time
And yet the politics is the politics: you pay your money you take your chance.
Tbf also depends if “very slowly building a skyscraper” is in the core skillset
Well yes I did almost say that as well. It’s basically a uniform at this point
Are you saying Gary for PM
Who in turn seemed to be basing his own on Gary Neville
I knoooow. Still a thing mind
This would have been at exactly the same time yes!
Speaking as a journalist, maybe it should have been
I spent most IT classes trying to get on the teacher’s computer to play Prince of Persia because his was the only colour screen, so I’d be lying if I said I fully imbibed the internet’s early big sell. But by 19 I was logging onto the university email system, so
Probably not a helpful intervention but I remember clearly in early secondary school - so mid 90s - something on the radio going on about the internet superhighway, and cyberspace, and that it was coming and we’d better get ready. IT teacher similarly enthusiastic
And I will be there, for reasons I don’t entirely understand. Don’t know if I can summon this level of excitement in a week but will try
In this essay…I won’t, because it’s midnight
Mmm don’t get carried away.
NEW: Foreign Affairs committee intends to summon Robbins over previous evidence on vetting process.
Emily Thornberry, committee chair, says: "Looking at the evidence given & the letters written, to be charitable there are glaring holes. It really is a question of whether we were knowingly misled."
As well as being a great scoop by Guardian colleagues, this feels potentially very, very bad for Keir Starmer.
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
V much enjoying series 3 of the capture. Full of admiration for people who can write such twisty turny stuff
Although I have a theory 👀 and want to see if I’m right
Hello, I made you a feed of your cats watching the Artemis II splashdown bsky.app/profile/did:...
Whereas if that had been going on in London, combined with a bunch of politicians and media outlets that decided that this was a proxy for that is All That Is Wrong In Britain, the fact I know several people assaulted on the Oldham line would land differently
I dunno. Eight or nine years ago the tram network here went through a phase of real sketchiness. Burnham did respond tbf and get some tram cops involved (much harder to police here than London, as no barriers). Point is, it was bad. But it wasn’t national “society is dying” news
Although obviously that does beg other qs but I’ll try and resist the chippiness
Similarly the recent Clapham stuff has caused outcry, but that sort of thing has been going on for years, on and off, all over the country. Even large parts of the 2011 riots had some of the same dynamics. It isn’t necessarily a “London has fallen” thing
I’m guessing, but from a distance it feels like tube dodging *has* increased, but is currently getting over-coverage as a “London is hell” problem, while low level shit has been bad, and under covered, everywhere, for a decade.
I also think on this there’a a basic “believe your eyes” metric. eg “has unprosecuted low level crime grown and not just in London and not just in the last five years” (yes, I’ve seen it with my eyes) and “has Manchester’s economy grown” (yes, I’ve seen it with my eyes)