The Burnham Years - Can the new(ish) broom sweep clean?

[Farmer Saint]

58 minutes ago, iansums said:

Our two IT personnel WFH today and I need a workstation set up.

It's not that kind of IT. IT Support needs to be in the office.

[badgerx16]

1 hour ago, iansums said:

What does amaze me is how many people WFH in recent weeks when we've had this heat wave. We are lucky enough to have really good AC in the office and some people choose to WFH in an oven, they can't be working efficiently.

In weather like this I miss the computer rooms at work.

[Weston Super Saint]

1 hour ago, whelk said:

Is this news to you this morning?

Yes.

[hypochondriac]

At least he's binned Lammy. If he does nothing else good that's an undeniable positive.

[Gloucester Saint]

1 hour ago, hypochondriac said:

At least he's binned Lammy. If he does nothing else good that's an undeniable positive.

As soon as I saw that on BBC News just now, I thought ‘I know someone who will be pleased with that’! 

[Gloucester Saint]

7 hours ago, egg said:

Peter Kyle as chancellor though. Hmm.

 

Sacked as Business Secretary and seemingly out of the cabinet, as is Lammy, Steve Reed, Liz Kendall and Lord Hermer. Reeves turned down one of the other big cabinet offices.

Mahmood and Miliband just gone in there, Mahmood as CofE has been the chatter. John Healey went into No10 before them. 

Edited Monday at 16:54 by Gloucester Saint

[hypochondriac]

21 minutes ago, Gloucester Saint said:

As soon as I saw that on BBC News just now, I thought ‘I know someone who will be pleased with that’! 

Ha. Possibly my most hated man in politics at present. I can't think of anything he has tried to introduce or proposed that I don't think is a dumb idea. God willing he's never in a position of influence ever again. Absolutely no idea what Burnham will be like but he's saying the right things and a more collegiate approach is to be welcomed. You always got the impression that Starmer viewed those who disagreed with him as beneath contempt. 

Edited Monday at 17:04 by hypochondriac

[badgerx16]

Healey as CofE. Wonder how that will affect the defence budget.

[egg]

33 minutes ago, Gloucester Saint said:

Sacked as Business Secretary and seemingly out of the cabinet, as is Lammy, Steve Reed, Liz Kendall and Lord Hermer. Reeves turned down one of the other big cabinet offices.

Mahmood and Miliband just gone in there, Mahmood as CofE has been the chatter. John Healey went into No10 before them. 

Kyle was 1/100 this morning to be Chancellor. Odds like that suggested it was done and leaked. Not sure what's happened, of anything. I said I was expecting a few curveballs, but Healey is Chancellor is proper curvy. It'll be interesting to see how the markets react in the morning. 

[Gloucester Saint]

1 hour ago, badgerx16 said:

Healey as CofE. Wonder how that will affect the defence budget.

That’s the gambit - you want the budget for defence John, you find the savings then.

[Gloucester Saint]

1 hour ago, egg said:

Kyle was 1/100 this morning to be Chancellor. Odds like that suggested it was done and leaked. Not sure what's happened, of anything. I said I was expecting a few curveballs, but Healey is Chancellor is proper curvy. It'll be interesting to see how the markets react in the morning. 

Spent 5 years in Gordon Brown’s Treasury though and markets seem to like him. Mahmood is the most popular member of the cabinet with the wider public (albeit not her own left wing) so staying Home Sec makes sense.

If we’re talking curvy, Ed Miliband as Foreign Sec - even if he wanted it, that’s Marilyn Monroe.

’Over here Orange Rottweiler, enjoy your new chew toy’.

[egg]

28 minutes ago, Gloucester Saint said:

Spent 5 years in Gordon Brown’s Treasury though and markets seem to like him. Mahmood is the most popular member of the cabinet with the wider public (albeit not her own left wing) so staying Home Sec makes sense.

If we’re talking curvy, Ed Miliband as Foreign Sec - even if he wanted it, that’s Marilyn Monroe.

’Over here Orange Rottweiler, enjoy your new chew toy’.

We'll see tomorrow, but I think Heeley will be a wee bit more left than the markets will like. 

Milliband is odd as well. I thought he may get home sec.

[Gloucester Saint]

34 minutes ago, egg said:

Milliband is odd as well. I thought he may get home sec.

I thought he’d be Health although Cooper is a solid pair of hands there. McFadden staying at DWP makes sense as needs someone who knows the brief to make reductions. 

Yes, we’ll see on Healey but I didn’t have him down as especially left. More of a presence to calm markets because Burnham does make bond markets more uneasy. Speccy enthusiastic https://spectator.com/article/john-healey-is-a-clever-choice-for-chancellor/

Edited Monday at 19:45 by Gloucester Saint

[Gloucester Saint]

Rayner and housing is somewhat ironic!

Streeting just going in - what’s unfilled in the bigger cabinet positions? Defence? Energy?

Edited Monday at 21:31 by Gloucester Saint

[Holmes_and_Watson]

44 minutes ago, Gloucester Saint said:

Rayner and housing is somewhat ironic!

Streeting just going in - what’s unfilled in the bigger cabinet positions? Defence? Energy?

Someone to feed Larry the cat 🙂 

[badgerx16]

1 hour ago, Gloucester Saint said:

Streeting just going in - what’s unfilled in the bigger cabinet positions? Defence? Energy?

D-Fence for Wes.

[JohnnyShearer2.0]

21 hours ago, iansums said:

What does amaze me is how many people WFH in recent weeks when we've had this heat wave. We are lucky enough to have really good AC in the office and some people choose to WFH in an oven, they can't be working efficiently.

No one ever WFH effectively or efficiently. Ever. Millions of people being layabouts. Everyone needs to be in the office.

[Gloucester Saint]

7 hours ago, badgerx16 said:

D-Fence for Wes.

And Wesley Streeting’ goes into the end zone in overtime, touchdown!

Dannett wasn’t enthusiastic the other day but then he wouldn’t be unless it was John Healey or Ben Wallace had defected parties. 

[ecuk268]

4 hours ago, JohnnyShearer2.0 said:

No one ever WFH effectively or efficiently. Ever. Millions of people being layabouts. Everyone needs to be in the office.

Rubbish.

A lot of IT jobs can be done from home. It's not difficult to monitor what someone is doing and it can be advantageous for parents who may have to pop out to pick up the kids and make the time up later (or earlier).

[Farmer Saint]

4 hours ago, JohnnyShearer2.0 said:

No one ever WFH effectively or efficiently. Ever. Millions of people being layabouts. Everyone needs to be in the office.

Absolute horseshit.

[JohnnyShearer2.0]

38 minutes ago, ecuk268 said:

Rubbish.

A lot of IT jobs can be done from home. It's not difficult to monitor what someone is doing and it can be advantageous for parents who may have to pop out to pick up the kids and make the time up later (or earlier).

I was being sarcastic in regards to another post!

[JohnnyShearer2.0]

22 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

Absolute horseshit.

My Mr Fry impression didn't work!

I was being sarcastic in reply to another post.

[Farmer Saint]

13 minutes ago, JohnnyShearer2.0 said:

My Mr Fry impression didn't work!

I was being sarcastic in reply to another post.

Ah, apologies!

[iansums]

51 minutes ago, JohnnyShearer2.0 said:

I was being sarcastic in regards to another post!

And I was talking specifically about WFH in the recent heatwave. It is certainly convenient to WFH if you have a medical appointment or have workmen at home etc. Personally, I much prefer to be in the office.

[whelk]

1 hour ago, JohnnyShearer2.0 said:

I was being sarcastic in regards to another post!

If it helps, I realised that

[Turkish]

Apparently Burnhams missus once appeared on Blind Date, massive kudos points for that 

[iansums]

38 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Apparently Burnhams missus once appeared on Blind Date, massive kudos points for that 

Her ‘date’ was a guy who later worked for the Tory party, they met again several years later in the HoC.

[badgerx16]

1 hour ago, Turkish said:

Apparently Burnhams missus once appeared on Blind Date, massive kudos points for that 

She was apparently the top totty in her year at Cambridge Uni, and people were amazed that he bagged her.

[Weston Super Saint]

6 minutes ago, badgerx16 said:

She was apparently the top totty in her year at Cambridge Uni, and people were amazed that he bagged her.

Competition doesn't look like it was too stiff....

 

Looks like an episode of Rainbow!

[Weston Super Saint]

So yesterday's 'teaser' that the cost of living would be looked at with fully costed funding that will be announced today, is basically £1 per week saved in VAT on fuel bills.  Oh, and there is no explanation as to how this will be funded!  I think there was a reference to using the scrapped ID card folly, but there was never any funding in place for that.

I don't want to sound ungrateful, but the proposal will basically pay for two Euromillions tickets every five weeks.  Fingers crossed for a bigger windfall with those!

[egg]

4 hours ago, iansums said:

And I was talking specifically about WFH in the recent heatwave. It is certainly convenient to WFH if you have a medical appointment or have workmen at home etc. Personally, I much prefer to be in the office.

Convenient, yes. I'm one of those who's convinced that it suits many employees much more than it suits most employers. 

[hypochondriac]

Obviously very early days but binning all the bizarre self harm policies is a good start - scrapping digital ID and the jury trials removal, noises about drilling starting up again, tax breaks for hospitality. If they bin Chagos, assisted suicide, green levies and do something about migrants then they could well be reelected.

Edited Tuesday at 17:32 by hypochondriac

[CB Fry]

11 hours ago, JohnnyShearer2.0 said:

No one ever WFH effectively or efficiently. Ever. Millions of people being layabouts. Everyone needs to be in the office.

I approve this message 

[Turkish]

[Jeremy Corbyn]

15 hours ago, hypochondriac said:

Obviously very early days but binning all the bizarre self harm policies is a good start - scrapping digital ID and the jury trials removal, noises about drilling starting up again, tax breaks for hospitality. If they bin Chagos, assisted suicide, green levies and do something about migrants then they could well be reelected.

Surely not always having jury trials is just a pragmatic step given the massive backlog rather than anything overly philosophical.  Do people really object considering the obvious need / benefit?

[hypochondriac]

7 minutes ago, Jeremy Corbyn said:

Surely not always having jury trials is just a pragmatic step given the massive backlog rather than anything overly philosophical.  Do people really object considering the obvious need / benefit?

I haven't seen a single piece of analysis from experts or people in the field that say it would say any significant amount of time at all. Jury trials are not the reason for the backlog and scrapping them won't make a significant difference. 

[Farmer Saint]

Huh, how weird.

We were told they were all moving to Dubai.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgjp79m42go

[egg]

On 22/07/2026 at 09:38, Jeremy Corbyn said:

Surely not always having jury trials is just a pragmatic step given the massive backlog rather than anything overly philosophical.  Do people really object considering the obvious need / benefit?

Juries aren't the issue. There's insufficient court space and judges, and that doesn't change with more judge decided cases. It was a pointless move and I'm glad it's being reversed. 

[Farmer Saint]

6 minutes ago, egg said:

Juries aren't the issue. There's insufficient court space and judges, and that doesn't change with more judge decided cases. It was a pointless move and I'm glad it's being reversed. 

I was thinking about the prison issues the other day. I'm wondering whether instead of prison sentences for white collar crime we look at full time community service for the length of the "prison" sentence, alongside tagging. Would help with number of inmates in addition to helping make our communities better.

[tdmickey3]

Badenoch is hilarious

Waffle, waffle, waffle

Complaining about what the 14 years of incompetence party did by blaming Labour

 

🤡

Edited 4 hours ago by tdmickey3

[Gloucester Saint]

1 hour ago, Farmer Saint said:

I was thinking about the prison issues the other day. I'm wondering whether instead of prison sentences for white collar crime we look at full time community service for the length of the "prison" sentence, alongside tagging. Would help with number of inmates in addition to helping make our communities better.

This, and paying much higher fines to get some direct recompense to those they’ve ripped off. Freeze their assets long-term bar the everyday transactions eg food, basic transport and schooling their family.

Keep them working, and 20 years of repaying their fraudulent gains plus 5% interest would be a huge deterrent to carrying on the path of fraud with a suspended sentence hanging over them. You keep your family together, but you’ll live a basic life because most of their income goes to the victims until they’ve been fully repaid.

[AlexLaw76]

23 minutes ago, Gloucester Saint said:

This, and paying much higher fines to get some direct recompense to those they’ve ripped off. Freeze their assets long-term bar the everyday transactions eg food, basic transport and schooling their family.

Keep them working, and 20 years of repaying their fraudulent gains plus 5% interest would be a huge deterrent to carrying on the path of fraud with a suspended sentence hanging over them. You keep your family together, but you’ll live a basic life because most of their income goes to the victims until they’ve been fully repaid.

Paying her fines? Will £5 a month do?

[Gloucester Saint]

14 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Paying her fines? Will £5 a month do?

The type of higher income white collar criminals will be repaying a fair bit more than that 😀 

The cautionary tale which I think you’re alluding to is the Magistrates Courts trying to impose unit fines in the 1990s. It was applied too bluntly, some family companies would switch the ownership and shareholdings around resulting in the desultory type of fine you cite.

The principle though of white collar criminals actually working to recompense and not eating up resources inside in the prisons system where sexual and very violent offenders are the incarceration priority, taking more of the burden is a good one but would need a clear process and criteria for sentencing to it. It’d also enable the offenders to rehabilitate their reputations whilst not splitting families but on the proviso that the nicer things in life come along once you’ve finished paying back.

[egg]

3 hours ago, Farmer Saint said:

I was thinking about the prison issues the other day. I'm wondering whether instead of prison sentences for white collar crime we look at full time community service for the length of the "prison" sentence, alongside tagging. Would help with number of inmates in addition to helping make our communities better.

Personally, I like the idea of reformative justice, but for all criminals. The whole system needs a top down review - prevention, policing, process, courts, judicial appointments, sentencing, life after, budget, etc. 

[Holmes_and_Watson]

4 hours ago, Farmer Saint said:

I was thinking about the prison issues the other day. I'm wondering whether instead of prison sentences for white collar crime we look at full time community service for the length of the "prison" sentence, alongside tagging. Would help with number of inmates in addition to helping make our communities better.

 

2 hours ago, Gloucester Saint said:

This, and paying much higher fines to get some direct recompense to those they’ve ripped off. Freeze their assets long-term bar the everyday transactions eg food, basic transport and schooling their family.

Keep them working, and 20 years of repaying their fraudulent gains plus 5% interest would be a huge deterrent to carrying on the path of fraud with a suspended sentence hanging over them. You keep your family together, but you’ll live a basic life because most of their income goes to the victims until they’ve been fully repaid.

Where a fraudster has targeted and destroyed the lives of others, then a huge deterrent would hopefully be a jail sentence proportional to the extent/ value of their fraud. If they can't pay it back, they should just be in there for longer. 

[Farmer Saint]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c142jmxr5x6t

U-turn alert!! Who had 3 days?