“King of the North” sounds like “Wicked Witch of the West”, so here, between the Tin Man (“If I only had a heart”) and the Lion (“If I only had courage”) stands the Scarecrow (“If I only had a brain”). Foxes are the bane of the binman, but Andy Burnham did not dress like this on these occasions when he was in the Cabinet. This is pure affectation.
It is “King of the North”, from Daniel 11. Not everything is from Harry Potter or Game of Thrones. But most of the North is north of Manchester, and almost all of it is either north of Manchester, or east of Manchester, or both. Burnham has done nothing for us, and as the Mayor of Greater Manchester, why should he have done?
The Greens want that Mayoralty, and at the moment it looks as if their candidate will be Geraldine Coggins, their Group Leader on Trafford Council. But they lost their deposit at Makerfield while taking less than a third of the votes for the Workers Party at yesterday’s local by-election in Bury. The Workers Party should never have stood aside for the Greens at Gorton and Denton, but the least that they should do would be to stand aside this time for its candidate, George Galloway, whom Starmer should now guarantee would not be detained as a terrorist on his return to Britain. Starmer will not, nor will the Greens.
The Greens’ opposition to the very New Labour desire for even more gambling, and Burnham was a researcher for Tessa Jowell, is fatally undermined by their support for drug legalisation, just as their opposition to the medically unnecessary circumcision of children is fatally undermined by their support for chemical or surgical castration in the name of gender identity. From 1 August, researchers at King’s College London will be permitted to use experimental puberty blockers on boys from the age of 12 and on girls from the age of 11. Clearly, they know the difference. Those thus experimented up would be deemed incapable of messaging their peers on social media, but capable of this.
A week after circumcision became a live issue in Britain, we have still heard nothing from the School of Christopher Hitchens, headed by Oliver Kamm. That question also presents itself to Restore Britain, with its desire to ban kosher and halal slaughter. Far from being the kingmaker at Makerfield, Restore took fewer votes and a lower share than had been managed in 2010 by the BNP, and as the party of remigration that comparison is apt. Even if every Restore voter had voted for Reform UK, then Reform would still have lost. “Stop Farage” is now the single most powerful message in British politics.
And people are joining the Labour Party to support Starmer, but they are angry that they will have no vote until they had been six months in. Yet that rule was established by Starmer to prevent anything like the influx of support for Jeremy Corbyn. Would it take a heart of stone not to laugh? I famously have a heart of stone, and I am still laughing.
Let’s all get real. Keir Starmer’s support even in his own cabinet has collapsed and he’d be humiliated in a leadership election.Streeting has even less support and is on a puerile self-promotion exercise. The priority now is the construction of an effective radical policy programme.
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