If you want to understand Andy Burnham, the only thing you’ll ever have to read is… this.
I was going to tag this as “humour”, but it’s too true to be haha funny.
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If you want to understand Andy Burnham…June 24th, 2026 |
 26 comments to If you want to understand Andy Burnham…Leave a Reply |
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Yes – and this stuff, this mixture of “I am one of you” and demented fake economics, is popular, but the popularity will, I believe, wear off quickly.
For a very long time the establishment has believed that it is the job of government (the Sword of State) to “help the people” – in reality state intervention has always made things worse than they otherwise would have been, but the madness goes on and on. It will end with Mr Burnham.
It will be a terrible, as well as farcical, end – but at least it will be the end.
As for his Catholicism – it does NOT include any Catholic religious doctrines (see his view of abortion and so on), but does include “Catholic social teaching” in regards to economics (Mr Biden was also fond of this – the only aspect of the Catholic Church he was fond of) – a mixture of the economic policies of Pope Gregory (he of the calendar) confiscation of private property to fund spending (“for the good of the poor” – which meant that the Papal States became famous for their poverty), and the false claims made in the first paragraph of the 1891 Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII – the claims, inspired, in part, by Cardinal Manning, that capitalism had increased poverty, only benefited a rich few, and had increased immorality.
Policy that is based upon false claims is likely to be harmful – and so it has proved.
The truth was in the first line. “Politics isn’t working”. More accurately, your version of electoral politics is not working. Electoral politics, parliamentary or otherwise, is not the only form of politics. Most of them are neither safe, nor pleasant , nor free; but throughout history they have been the norm. When a high enough percentage of a population loses faith in a system of government and its legitimacy; one or another of those other systems of politics will be turned to and the turning will not be pleasant.
Here in my own country we are at the beginning of what I am starting to refer to as The Great Divide, which is a prelude to what is likely to happen. You are a bit farther along. But the intrinsic lawlessness of the government and the inability of the people to affect things by voting are sure signs.
Subotai Bahadur
but the popularity will, I believe, wear off quickly.
I agree. Seems to me this little palace coup is way too early. The electorate have another three years to tire of Andy.
Still, he seems like an airhead. An improvement on a full on Bolshevik.
Subotai Bahadur,
Western politics doesn’t work because of the utterly stupid practice of universal suffrage. Let’s give the vote to people who hate our civilisation and want to see it destroyed. What could possibly go wrong? The demos should only consist of those with skin in the game.
Lee Moore,
Starmer is still prime minister. He has eleven weeks to dig man traps for Burnham. Of course, he wouldn’t do that, he’s a patriot and a man of integrity. Ha ha ha …
Asmongold calls Burnham (Carney, Harris, and others) a ‘tank swap’.
Starmer had too many debuffs on him. He gets removed, and the next tank steps in to draw aggro. Nothing else really changes.
Only gamers will get the reference here but yes, accurate.
Lee Moore – yes in three years the government will be more unpopular than it is now, unless it controls the media and takes People’s Republic of China style control of the internet.
And that is what the government is planning to do – which is logical, vicious – but logical.
Meanwhile the right are tearing each other apart – Conservatives, Reform and Restore all fighting like rats in a sack.
People who can leave this land would be wise to leave.
From Wikipedia,
From 1998 to 2001, he was a special adviser to Culture Secretary Chris Smith.
What in the flying-fuck is that? Why does the nation of Turner, Elgar and Shakespeare need a “Culture Secretary” and why does s/he need a “special advisor”?
I think that is almost all you need to know Andy Burnham. Except he’s (sort of) Mancunian (he might have mentioned it). Well, so am I so why can’t I be PM? I even have an SK postcode so that makes me just as Stockport as Angela Rayner who (God help us all!) has two claims to fame – being from Stockport and being a 16 year old single mother. I would argue that neither of those things are things to be proud about (and I’m originally from Gateshead – so I know about the first one). Having said that there is a connection. An unmarried sixteen year old with no GCSEs whelping in Stockport is far from unusual.
Stockport is a shithole. It is, though, not exactly Oldham in terms of enshitification. It also has one of the most magnificent structures on the planet.
Work began in March 1839 and despite its scale and flooding from the Mersey, the viaduct was completed in December 1840 and services commenced the same month.
-Wikipedia.
Everyone “responsible” for HS2 should know that line and be mortified by it. And yes, it was built to connect Manchester and Birmingham.
NickM
I agree with you about culture – even in the 1930s (during the World Depression) cultural matters, including such minority interests as opera and ballet, were voluntarily funded – there was little government funding and few government edicts.
It was Lord Keynes (J.M. Keynes – the “economist” who refused to understand even the basic economics of how a labour market works) who pushed the idea of an “Arts Council” in government – from which we eventually got a “Culture Secretary”.
Such things as art galleries and museums can be free WITHOUT such government involvement – via charitable trusts.
Although it should be noted that is is not only government taste that can be corrupted – so can private taste.
For example, beautiful Victorian paintings were out of fashion in the 1930s – and what was in fashion was clearly inferior, there had been a decline of fashionable taste.
Even before the First World War there was a decline in fashionable taste – including in France, the most famous nation for painting.
As for the decline of the Industrial North – as far back as 1875 (the Disraeli Trade Union Act – and also his Local Government Act) British government policy appeared to be designed to undermine British industry – in the early 1900s (before the First World War – yes before it) British government policy became far more extreme – basically everything they did seemed to designed to undermine British industry.
With this background, plus the terrible costs of two World Wars, and the structurally insane policies that followed World War II (such as incredibly high taxes on “investment income” in the 1960s and 1970s – which made investment not viable), it is surprising that any British industry survived at all.
The Marxist idea that governments serve “capitalist interests” “the interests if the capitalist ruling class” does not fit British political history over the last 150 years.
For example, the “history” and politics books present former Chancellor Denis Healey as a “moderate” – in reality he supported a top rate of tax on Investment Income of over 90% and he also supported government granted union powers that are called “Collective Bargaining”.
No industry, no matter what its historical advantages, can survive such policies for a long period of time – not policies that tax investment at such an absurdly high rate (“tax the rich till the pips squeak” – it is hard to imagine a Chancellor, who is not Criminally Insane, saying that – but it is what Mr Healey said) and not where wages and conditions are NOT determined by supply and demand, but rather by paramilitary tactics (such as “picket lines”) and government “experts”.
Denis Healey was not a stupid man, on the contrary this “moderate” was highly intelligent, so it is hard to believe he did not know the obvious consequences of the policies he supported. If such policies were continued for a long period of time the obvious consequence would be the total destruction of this nation.
As Commander Erik Brown (one of the inspirations for the character of James Bond) asked about Mr Healey in the 1960s (when Mr Healey was Defense Secretary and engaged in the active sabotage of the British armed forces – and it was active sabotage of the British armed forces by the former Major Healey) “you admit to being a Marxist in your youth – what year did you cease to be a Marxist, and for what reasons did you stop being a Marxist, have you ever, in fact, come to the conclusion that the basic Marxist doctrines are wrong, and, if so, why are they wrong?”
This a perfectly civil question – if someone says they are no longer a Marxist they should be able to say when they stopped being a Marxist, and why they stopped being a Marxist.
If they are unable to explain why they no longer believe in Marxism – then further investigation is reasonable. Especially if the person is supporting a top rate of tax on Investment of over 90% – it is not unreasonable to suppose that such a policy is designed to destroy civilisation, which Marxists call “capitalism”.
That heavy taxation undermines economic life, and that government (rather than supply and demand) setting prices (and wages and rents are prices) is insane, is not some new discovery.
After all, one can observe the consequences of the such terrible policies when, for example, the Emperor Diocletian imposed them.
And that most academics claim that Diocletian introduced “reforms” which solved “the crises of the Third Century” shows just how utterly intellectually corrupted modern academia has become.
Someone who claims that the Roman world was in a better condition under Diocletian than it has been under (say) the Emperor Probus (a couple of years before) is either so stupid that it is a wonder that they can dress themselves, or is a liar – and a liar with an agenda of Collectivism.
Paul,
Well… Yes, France has a fine history of painting. I might quibble that it has a finer history than Italy but quite frankly that is a mere quibble. I do disagree with you on the quality of C20+ art. Some of it is stunningly good. I rather like abstract expressionists like Jackson Pollock (the Soviets hated his stuff – way too individualist) but I must agree on funding… I cannot for the life of me understand why we have things like the RSC when William Shakespeare himself could make a living writing and playing and part managing a theatre which probably cost a groat to enter. And that is part of the thing. Back in the Days of the Bard the theatre was much more inclusive than the largely state-funded antics of now. My understanding is Shakespeare’s Globe was frequented by all sorts and not just Guardian readers who wanted more money for “the arts” (as long as it isn’t more of their money, obviously). Is there a sector of “the arts” which thrives without any significant government funding? Yes, computer games.
Nick:
I think anyone armed with a paint brush could do a reasonable approximation of a Jackson Pollock. It’s a bit harder to do with an Old Master or a Pre-Raphaelite. Look at Rothko, one of his paintings was hung upside down for years, and nobody noticed, for obvious reasons.
I’m more concerned about Larry The Cat’s replacement.
He’s been a dependable presence at 10 Downing Street for 15 years now but he’s 19 and can’t keep going much longer.
I love Rothko. And Pollock.
Larry is the most honest creature to have inhabited Downing St for years…
Nick:
I think if Larry dipped his tail in a pot of paint he could whip you up quite a decent Pollock. Sadly I think Rembrandt might be a bit beyond him.
NickM – we will agree to, partly, disagree about painting.
You are quite correct that ordinary people used to pay to see serious plays and listen to serious music.
For example, as late as the 1930s one of the leading Opera companies had a private train – because it went around the country giving performances, and most of the people who paid to listen were quite ordinary people.
Ordinary people also read serious books – and by ordinary people I do indeed mean manual workers.
Define “serious”. Are Blondie serious? I think so – I have bought records and went to gigs. Is Beethoven (performances of which are massively state-supported) serious? I also love his music. Blondie aren’t state supported. The thing is, apart from everything else… Late Victorian painting hit a wall. That wall is called photography. Pictures of Fallen Madonnas (with or without big boobies) became “like whatever” however well technically crafted (labour theory of value?). We needed new. And some of it is shite but that has always been the case. I believe we live in a remarkable age of creation. And yeah, it annoys folks but doing things differently always has done. I use AI a lot. It makes life easier. It makes my images better. I can create in minutes what used to take days. I think it is the same as being able to travel across continents in hours and not months. It is called progress. It is the reason why I can design web graphics and eat at nice restaurants and not grovel in the mud to get some Bronze-Age Demiurge to allow me to eat shit in the trees.
OK, that’s all a bit harsh but I have spent the warmest day since whenever yanking tables up and down stairs. Tables for a bunch of sanctimonious God-botherers so they can hold a tea party for asylum seekers and feel “Godly”. I even had to create a barrier for the stream. Yeah, a stream (which has been risk analysed as dangerous) for a bunch of fuckers who managed to cross the English Channel in dinghies. Fuck me! I’m also making a (quite excellent) potato salad for them.
It is probably right I’m not allowed to be armed.
Blondie, yes indeed.
NickM – I think I did give an example of what I meant, the example being that in the 1930s ordinary people going (and paying to go) to listen to a leading opera company.
Is technical skill redundant in a machine age? I do not believe so – after all people still, for example, buy paintings that took great technical skill to produce.
I do not think it was photography that led to Modernism in art – it was ideology. After all the best selling French painters even in the early 1900s were people producing paintings that looked like real life – it is only with the dominance of the left in writing that history has been rewritten so that the abstract artists get all the coverage, and French and British painters who carried on in the great tradition are ignored, just as architects such as Lutyens and Cass Gilbert remained popular with the public – but were ignored by the people who wrote the works on architecture – the writers who pushed modern art and architecture for very much political (ideological) reasons.
An ideology that may not have said its aim was “the total eradication of Western Civilization” (it lacked the frankness of the successful Democratic Party candidates in the United States) – but when one looks at the various writings of the people involved in Modernism (whether in painting, music, architecture – and so on) their aim was often (NOT always – I agree with you) was this – they just used more words to say the same thing.
Jackson Pollock – no, but most modernist painters – yes.
Blondie – no, but John Lennon “Imagine” – yes.
To this day popular music people are expected to come out with leftist opinions – they have a check list of opinions they must have.
Taylor Swift being an obvious example – someone who had no real political ideology, till she was told that she had to have one – and what that ideology had to be.
It should also be remembered that there was no real difference in aim (in objective) between the Democrat politicians who were defeated in the Primary elections and those who were successful.
The existing Democrat party politicians also worked for the “total eradication of Western civilization” – they just did not say so (all their policies, economic and social – cultural, had this objective) – the new breed want us to KNOW that they want us exterminated.
They have been taught (by the education system and so on) that now is the time – that soon they will be eating the eyeballs of the capitalist-running-dogs (i.e. none leftists).
And they, Mr Mandani and his associates, may well be correct.
Perhaps the best known British artist of the early 20th century was Frank Salisbury – it was he that people choose to have their portrait painted by, and he also painted “fantasy” scenes as artists had always done.
Frank Salisbury was never made a member of the Royal Academy – already neither technical skill or popularity counted for anything, indeed, if anything, they had become marks AGAINST an artist.
In France it was precisely the technical skill of artists that inspired the hatred (and it was hatred – and is hatred) of those who wished to destroy civilization – which they called “capitalism”. At that time still saying that they wished to create a new society on the ashes of the old – very much like H.G. Wells writing (for example in “In the days of the comet”) with approval about the destruction of art, literature, beautiful building, and the destruction of private property in the means of production and the destruction of the family – it was all one to him (and it is indeed all part of the same project).
But the modern stage of admitting there is not going to be any better society created on the ashes of the old, that there is just going to be the ashes and dried blood (that this is the objective) had not yet been reached.
The revival of interest in such artists as William-Adolphe Bouguereau is a sign of hope – although only a small sign.
Bouguereau was the artist the left (political as well as cultural) hated most – precisely because of his technical skill and the beauty of his works for they hate both technical skill (which shoes that only a few people can achieve greatness in art – not everyone, something that is true in every other human undertaking as well) and they hate beauty – they hate beauty with a savage passion.
He painted more than 800 works – but some the left have hunted down and destroyed.
The left hand path leads to Hell – and the most intelligent leftists eventually work that out for themselves, and embrace Hell.
Paul,
BBC iPlayer has an excellent docu series on the end of Communism in Russia. It’s called TraumaZone. I was quite stunned by how backward the place was. Out in the sticks it looked medieval. Anyway… for me the standout moment was when Soviet planners used a computer to decide that platform heels were going to be fashionable (which shows no understanding of how fashion works) but by the time they had got the factory to make them computer was saying “No”. It’s utterly hilarious until you remember that nearly 300 million people lived in that Hell. Sometimes it’s the little things rather than the gulags and the purges and the Holodomor which grab you.
Yes, that’s women’s shoes. Not quite fine art but certainly a “creative” industry and that is exactly why the government (any government) getting involved in anything “creative” makes creation face a kind of Stockholm Syndrome. The money holds them hostage and the longer they are held the less able they are to conceive of anything else.
Apple was started by three guys in a garage. George Stephenson got his son to teach him to read in a cottage in Northumberland. Powered flight was achieved by two guys in a bike-shop. I won’t go into the total farrago that was Langley’s “Aerodrome” but the USN was seriously out of pocket and that utter fiasco only succeeded in taking an early bath in the Potomac.
Individuals create
Paul,
“They hate beauty”. There is truth in what you say. Visit the City of my birth, Newcastle. There is one Georgian arcade left. The rest were demolished to build a horrendous shopping mall (Eldon Square). Much of Georgian Newcastle still stands because T Dan Smith (Head of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Newcastle) and Poulson (his architect) got their collars’ fellt over massive corruption.
– Probably Frank Lloyd Wright.