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Yet another poll suggests Burnham surge is a damp squib - SNP dominant in Scottish subsample
Scotland immune to Burnham effect? SNP buoyed by stellar subsample result in first poll of new era
Andy Burnham's plan to rip up the Barnett Formula means he is ripping up Better Together's "Vow"
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Andy Burnham’s “King in the North” schtick is the latest camouflage of convenience for a chameleon politician. As perhaps his first act as Prime Minister, he will deliver a financial bailout to Thames Water.
ReplyDeleteThe problems of Thames Water are many and varied. Profit gouging for shareholders and eye watering remuneration packages for the Board Room are part of the story but not all.
To be fair to Thames Water, they had a very real, material problem to address (which they singularly didn’t as investment to maintain infrastructure was sacrificed for profits). They had to deal with increased population, increased population density and crucially increased urbanisation.
As Green belt was eaten up and folk replaced the grass in their gardens with AstroTurf and decking, and their gravel driveways with monoblock, there was massive increased and accelerated runoff of storm water which defeated the sewers and water treatment plants which led to increased discharge of untreated sewage to rivers. As the surface area of soak aways decreases, the storm water runoff issue increases exponentially.
Bailing out Thames Water won’t solve that issue (and it’s a subsidy to the SE of England to be borne by all of us).
If Burnham wants to address the root causes of the problem, he should let the system fail. The concentration of population, wealth, finance and political power in the SE of England has been ongoing since Thatcher came to power. Burnham could be forgiven for holding a press conference where he states that the legacy of nearly 50 years of government policy prioritising the status of the SE of England is beyond his powers to rectify.
If folk in London can aford to pay a seven figure sum for a glorified bedsit which the Estate Agent describes as a “compact and bijou studio apartment”, then they can afford to pay for the true costs of their water and power. If they can’t, they can pack up and move to somewhere more affordable.
The cheerleaders of free market and laissez-faire economics didn’t shed a tear when the folk of Consett, Corby, Motherwell and many other places were thrown to the wolves. Folk in Consett literally packed their few valuable possessions into suitcases and walked away from their homes.
If our political and media class start bleating about negative equity in London and the SE of England, we should remind them of the totem of their all important free market.
In political terms it seems that the English are still building on flood plains.
DeleteI mean, why are we still subsidising that sort of thing?
Good item, James. Andy B sounded completely lacking in awareness when he said that people in Dundee feel as remote from Holyrood as they feel from Westminster. Just another clueless politician confidently spouting nonsense about Scotland.
ReplyDelete644 AM Irvine no more, Grangemouth no more ..... good post. Brits as they like to be called need Scotland and Cymru- for their resources be it water, gas, oil, fishing, agriculture, electricity but dont give a monkees for anything else. They are scavengers.
ReplyDeleteWhy write 'Cymru' in an English language post? Do you call Finland 'Suomi' or would that be one pretentious step too far?
DeleteCymru is the name a lot of Welsh Natiionalists use for their country. That is their choice. Just as when it suits me I can refer to Scotland as Alba. The fact anyone using the word Cymru for Wales seems to bother you makes me think you are a Unionist troll. It is you that is a pretentious eejit
DeleteYou'll object to Scotland being referred to as Alba?
DeleteNo Suomi is fine for Finland too. Seemes 904pm is irked. Seems he is happy in his wee englander mode. What should Engerland be really called?
DeleteIn an item written in English? Of course. It's either pretentious or just silly:
Delete"We had a few days in Deutschland then went to België/Belgique/Belgien for the rest of our holiday. Next year we're going to Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera/Svizra for a week."
Silly, isn't it?
It seems sensible, if you're writing in English, to use the English names of countries and other places, unless you happen to know the name of every place in the world in its form(s) in the local language(s). It doesn't strike me as a wee Englander view. Calling Finland 'Suomi' looks like tokenism. What about the using the Saami forms like Suopma? Or the Swedish form which is ... Finland?
DeleteThe readers would need to know every possible name in the local languages of every place too. An awful lot of info to have to remember.
DeletePerhaps it might help if we actually had a free press? Little is known of Burnham other than the "fact" that he nationalised Manchester's buses. But of course, he did no such thing, as the buses are simply franchised. News outlets abound with this misinformation on buses. Surely this is a co-ordinated press?
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what he achieved in Manchester, I do know that Glasgow and Edinburgh have much higher GDP per capita. And you are correct- he is actively trying to undermine devolution- since local government is devolved. We actually had regional power bases here before, Lothian and Strathclyde being effectively greater Edinburgh and Glasgow- but ultimately they proved ineffective in defending against Westminster policy platforms.
ReplyDeleteDundee remote from Hollyrood must be news to the city that has returned SNP MPs/MSPs for decades and was the highest Yes voting area. It’s the fact that someone who looks like he is going to be the next in a longline of unelected PMs can’t be bothered to do even a Google search to verify what they are asserting !
ReplyDeleteIn Aberdeen the south starts at Forfar.
ReplyDeleteBut another way of looking at this, is that by deciding to set up a "Number 10 of the North" in Manchester, Burnham has already accepted that Scotland is not long for the Union, and that therefore geographically he is preparing for the future - which is clever of him.
ReplyDeleteHad he intended for Scotland to remain in the Union, he would of course have decreed Manchester the "Number 10 of the Centre", and Unionists could have applauded his attempt at geopolitical equalisation.
I look forward to the Scottish Ambassador being welcomed at the Number 10 of the North of our nearest neebor.