“a mix between the weddoes & the courteeners with the swagger of the arms industry”: uk politics in 2026

IT'S TIME

(concept half-stolen from matt #2 bcz i can't think in this heat)

Talent borrows, genius steals.

Starmer apparently staying for the full term as my MP.

Did someone mention This Heat?

NEW - MPs say Bridget Phillipson and Liz Kendall confronted Kemi Badenoch about her language at PMQs today where she called Phillipson “spiteful” which Kendall said was outrageous. Badenoch reported to have said “I’m never going to stop talking about how spiteful you are”

The Tories want my vote.

tbf Badenoch, who you'll remember was working class when she worked at McDonald's, called Phillipson a "spiteful class warrior". If only!

spiteful towards..the rich? I wish a bish would

Phillipson is from a working class background much like Badenoch was when she worked in McDonald's for a couple of weeks.

Burnham's dad was a British Telecom engineer doing the hard graft of 2nd-fixing category 5 cable to RJ45 wall sockets. Kind of like a less hard working electrician/plumber type trade. Less likely to get fucked up by asbestos as well!

Kemi Badenoch goes hard after Rachel Reeves.

“She didn’t even bother to come out into Downing Street to watch the PM deliver his resignation speech.

“Then she turned up to get a selfie with Andy Burnham.

“She let him down.”

lol, some of the hardcore Starmeroids are agreeing with Badenoch

What the hell is Badenoch's deal? There must a skeleton key to understanding her ideology, who she is contrarian to and when and
why.
It seems to be just Spiked magazine, or is there more to it than that?

She actually is a spiteful class warrior.

She's in the terminally online right, so her ideology is shaped by so many conspiracy theories and weirdness it's a fool's game to try to understand her.

Patrician Nigerian family, brought up to look down her nose at plebs + Christian to boot.

Badenoch is extremely horrible but on the anthropomorphic quotient she scores higher as a human being than BP, who is literally an automaton.

Badenoch seems to be in politics for the chance to attempt to humiliate others. Given the current state of UK Pol, she has had a few opportunities to try this. However because she's about a millionth as smart as she thinks she is and lacking in any charisma, nothing particularly lands apart from how incredibly nasty she is. The fact that this exposes how opposition leader is her dream role and the highest level she'll ever reach may or may not be lost on her.

And if she was leader of an opposition that had a hope of winning an election, they'd have to fire her so somebody who cared about that or was mature enough to pause the juvenile hectoring and pretend to could take her place.

So many Universities are on the brink. Might be worth having a plan.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2djnz3y47o

xpost She's like Rik Mayall, not as in 'New Statesman' but 'Young Ones"

"Urr look at bogey face over there...."

(another politics thread with 'smart quotes' in the title that'll look bad for years)

Well, Kasabian have outlasted Starmer..

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HLoowvCWoAAnyGe?format=jpg&name=medium

"It was a fatally prosperous forensic year."

Harris might have eaten shit but starmzy managed to fit quite a lot of extraordinary prosecutions into his short and dismal reign tbf

Kieth will always lament that he could never match Kamala's extraordinarily absolutely fucking evil feat of using her office to block evidence that would have prevented an innocent black man from being consigned to death row. But sometimes the achievements of a prosecutor is more about who doesn't get prosecuted rather than who does!

Lol how did Kamala ever lose

FT reporting that Unite and GMB are pulling out all the stops to prevent Miliband from becoming Chancellor because they don't like his commitment to Net Zero.

... on the hottest day since records began

the express has had several front pages damning net zero in recent weeks. they really have a bee in their bonnet about it.

It's a standard right wing hate totem

(Hence Unite etc etc)

Jobs Jobs Jobs

After last night's incumbent losses to upstarts in NYC, my sources tell me Dem party leadership is reaching out to an individual they refer to only as "The Fixer", and that making that call is a "break in case of emergency" situation, but he's available and ready to go to work pic.twitter.com/AFsBLUFawJ

— Will 🦥 Menaker (@willmenaker) June 24, 2026

UK unions being pro fossil fuel, anti-green energy is not in the interests of the working classes, its purely to serve the billionaires and is so on brand for them.

Sharon Graham organised a Unite protest for a more equitable share of the weapons of death industry blood money for workers, after Italian unions had organised blockades for Gaza. It's a shameful bootlicking country is this and Graham is despicable and the other unions are all right-wing garbage as well. Which goes to show how the unionisation of BAE is a trojan horse for the UK elites and how apolitical labourism without anti-imperialism and class politics is always going to serve the interests of the scumbag elites. And this all comes the back to the complete destruction of the Labour Party also cannot come soon enough.

The Economist here is providing more hallucinations on 'Red Ed'

https://archive.ph/32o0q

still grumbling about David Miliband losing 16 years later, and then the deranged rambling from some parallel universe where somehow Ed had pulled a soft coup and is the de facto unelected leader of the UK, lol a joke publication

Laughing so hard at this AI-slop I nearly forgot to ask where he was between October 2023 and April 2024. https://t.co/GM0d2R4Uur pic.twitter.com/CGbphjflRY

— bread and poses (@breadandposes) June 25, 2026

this long twitter post by AI Carns quite obviously is 90% LLM generated slop, it's quite hilarious that he would put something so incredibly stupid out. Just lots of jaunty vacuous slogans in series, and all kind of centred around the idea that there is a consensus for the UK to become an insane permanent warfare state.

Here's the lesson I learned from Ukraine and in government, and it never changes. We invent things. Other countries build them. Other countries decide. We're brilliant at the first mile and absent for the next ninety nine.

^^^
this is one of the bits he wrote himself I think, lol

As talked about here, Burnham will need to fight his MPs

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/25/bond-markets-andy-burnham-afraid-own-mp-labour

This is misreading Burnham's willingness to do a radicalism. Beside all that though, Lab MPs will not get rid of him if he went with Ed Mil and then there was some kind of radical plan for the markets and The Bank of England.

Going with Streeting as chancelllor is, needless to say, suicidal.

fully expecting eye-rolls for sharing monbiot content, but this analysis of the different political strands within the broader green movement is pretty good i think:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8ic1KVmryY

Shabana Mahmood is set to sack Mike Tapp as Immigration Minister for "unauthorised remarks"

It comes after he wrote an article calling for foreign care workers to be exempt from her immigration reforms

A source says he's expected to be sacked for breaching the Ministerial Code

"He has taken possible ideas that the Home Secretary and her team were working on, and briefed them as his own to try to win a job in the new administration

tapp’s aff weather

about 90% of Tapp's schtick used to be "here comes the deportation hardman, let's go deport some subhuman scum" and now he's getting sacked for pretending to be more nuanced on immigration!

Keir Starmer is currently refusing to sack Mike Tapp despite Shabana Mahmood's request

It’s understood No 10 see him as a Minister commenting on a policy that falls within his remit

this is getting funnier

None of this fuckery about immigration and settlement was even in the manifesto. I hope she gets pissy and quits.

was going to say I hope she falls in a hole, but let's extend that to the entire house of commons

When I moved to the UK, it was on a freelancer visa which cost nothing to get or to renew. After FOUR years, ILR. No NHS fees, and no income minimums. Just letters from regular clients saying they were happy to carry on working with you. After the first renewal, the next three were basically rubber-stamped

John Major’s Britain, people…

Farnworth (Halton) Council By-Election Result:

🌹 LAB: 51.0% (+14.6)
➡️ RFM: 36.4% (-0.0)
🌳 CON: 7.7% (-5.7)
🌍 GRN: 4.7% (-9.0)
🦅 LBT: 0.2% (New)

Labour HOLD.
Changes w/ 2026.

— Election Maps UK (@ElectionMapsUK) June 25, 2026

My rudimentary maths tells me that Labour only won that by like 10 votes or fewer the previous time

If Burnham does the minimum around cost of living, gets privitization of utilities going, is seen to mean business around cost of living and so on, we may still get a hung parliament xp

If Labour didn't have such a stonking majority I'd have put money on them calling an election before the end of the year. As it is, I think they'll sit it out.

Greens have just overturned a Labour majority in a council by-election here (Goldsmid), so much for any Burnham bounce

https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/26232410.greens-take-council-seat-goldsmid-by-election-hove/

Uh, explain?

One of the adjudicated ballots which was called for Labour read “The least harming to this country”.

Keir Starmer will not sack Mike Tapp as Immigration Minister despite Shabana Mahmood’s request

No 10: “It is not for any Secretary of State to determine whether the Ministerial Code has been followed, it is a matter for the Prime Minister alone.

lol, the line between lame duck and already dead

Greens are basically a version of the Lab left, but they are meant to be their own thing.

Burnham must meet 3 key tests:

Will redistribution of power mean ditching the broken electoral system?

Will redistributed resources mean a real wealth tax and protecting the poorest?

Will a focus on local areas come with an end to the gutting of local authorities' budgets?

— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) June 29, 2026

Jonathan Reynolds in at the new expanded Business Department.

The Department title:

🚨 UPDATE: Andy Burnham has scrapped the Department for Science, Technology and Innovation

It has been merged into Business and Trade, which will be renamed as the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) July 20, 2026

Dbist is yet to come

We are running out for big jobs for Wes

Defence Sec
Justice Sec
Transport Sec

Nandy stays at DCMS

🚨 NEW: Andy Burnham has reappointed Lisa Nandy as Culture, Media and Sport Secretary pic.twitter.com/pjQLBfNLt9

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) July 20, 2026

ah, Wes Streeting to be appointed as Deputy Prime Minister?

Update: No 10 says "Digital" has been added to Lisa Nandy's department

It's now named the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

Update: No 10 says "Digital" has been added to Lisa Nandy's department

It's now named the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) July 20, 2026

however in the expanded Business depart includes Innovation (surely Innovation includes Technology?)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_for_Culture%2C_Media_and_Sport

It was renamed to Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on 3 July 2017, staying DCMS under the premiership of Theresa May to reflect the department's increased activity in the digital sector.[5] The department was renamed back to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) in February 2023, with responsibility for digital moving to the new Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

Healey is being put in because he’s a nobody who will do what he’s told, imo.

Must admit to wondering if he'd made Chancellor so he could see how little money there is to spare to play soldiers.

Healey did his bit to hasten Starmer's downfall and is being rewarded.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/andy-burnham-makerfield-labour-defence-welfare-starmer-b2995000.html

yeah i'm really not gonna work my way thru the Legion of Doom ranking them from worst to least worst

Anyone heard any more?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/20/man-charged-with-murder-ann-widdecombe-joshua-kerry

strange appointment, Wes Streeting as Defence Sec

Wes Streeting has been chosen as the new Defence Secretary in the cabinet.

— LBC News (@LBCNews) July 20, 2026

Got to stick the cunt somewhere I suppose.

Anyone heard any more?

only that he appears as a signatory on this open letter to Your Party from last year

https://openletter.earth/sign-the-open-letter-baf85a5c?limit=0

...

Doesn't seem much doubt where he lies in the political spectrum.

Jeremy crombyns off to the tower tomorrow then

Such a pity that 90% of the UK's freshwater is in one nation.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/21/not-enough-water-for-uks-datacentre-plans-trade-body-says

The UK will not have enough water for future datacentres, the water industry has said in stark criticism of the government’s AI growth plans.

this is simply untrue - the uk has more than enough water for datacentres if the thirsty oafs who live here restrict themselves to the sensible, healthy six thimbles of water a day recommended by the department of health and start shitting in holes they dig in the ground instead of using wasteful toilets

look, ensuring the uk population is adequately hydrated is the old politics

Ap brief moment of optimism: This is genuinely the kind of thing the government - any party government - are extremely vulnerable over, and I think the public fucking hate datacentres. We've already seen the results of the Green surge in pushing gov policy the tiniest bit left, even before Burnham. I think Greens under Polanski know how to exploit this, and I think Burnham does feel that pressure on his neck hairs. Ok optimism over.

> I think the public fucking hate datacentres

the daily express lampoons milliband on a weekly basis because he's against datacentres that will earn the country billions of pounds.

"Red Ed's 'suicidal energy policy' blamed for £31B data centre blow to UK" etc

The messaging is a lot more 'left-wing' in a Corbyn sorta way around cost of living, no more rough sleeping etc. Definitely the first government in a while that are looking at household bills and struggles as a day one priority.

Obviously they need to put cold hard cash back in people's pockets if they are going to have any hope of saving themselves...has to go far beyond pretty words and speeches.

Westminster Voting Intention:

LAB: 28% (+8)
RFM: 28% (=)
CON: 18% (+1)
LDM: 10% (-2)
GRN: 10% (-3)
SNP: 3% (=)

Via @DeltapollUK, 17-20 Jul.
Changes w/ 12-15 Jun.

The early polling is like thank fuck Starmer has been given the boot lol, but also you have your sometime back don't fuck it up

Where have they gained the 8 points from if the Conservatives have also gained 1 and the losses from the other parties only add up to 5?

I noticed that too - do they include undecided voters and people who weren't going to vote?

13% undecided. I guess 3% have decided...

Or whatever

There's no way there's only 3% undecided in any poll about anything.

Well, if people "don't know" they're less likely to fill in an online voting poll.

The answer when someone asked

'Others' down 2%, rest will be rounding.

— Election Maps UK (@ElectionMapsUK) July 21, 2026

That's some serious rounding.

let's assume the numbers are broadly accurate - the new improved dead count bounce will probably last a month or two tops

dead cat bounce

dead count is Rentoul, obv

Never noticed the similarity between Rentoul and Renfield before.

"Others" down two percent, from what? To What?

bins

I see the £2 bus fare cap back - seemed like a ridiculous self-own to get rid of it at the time especially considering how little it relatively costs.

Here’s where I remind Londoners that weekends from now to September, bus travel is £1.75 per day for as many rides and routes as you need.

Londoners as in those who live there?

Yes, obviously but also people visiting. I plan to get a few decent outer-zone dog walks out of it.

Oh, fine.

I'm at the age where I could get free trav on the London, but I'd have to live there to get it...

https://www.london.gov.uk/mayor-announces-new-weekend-hopper-fare

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-21/burnham-approves-use-of-uk-bases-for-some-us-strikes-on-iran

EXCLUSIVE: Andy Burnham has approved the use of British military bases by the US for what the UK calls defensive strikes against Iran, in a continuation of Keir Starmer’s policy even as Trump ramps up his war.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2dg54vprno

In 2023 when he was the mayor of Greater Manchester, Burnham called for freezes to private sector rents until the cost of living crisis was over.
But Rayner told the BBC on Friday: "I don't think that rent freezes, rent controls, is a way forward at the moment.
"Three years ago, Andy called for that because there was a significant crisis in the rental market.
"We implemented between then the Renters' Rights Act which is giving renters more power and control."

Ok glad the crisis is over Angie thx

Perfect scenario for mayors to be given extra powers, eh Andy?

My two, living in Brighton, have just about settled into new accommodation after having been evicted in a "No fault, but just-in-time" eviction.

I know of a few others that have had to do that. But, at least that's now gone as a threat.

Maybe have a look at how the LHA - the cap that determines how much people can claim for housing costs on Universal Credit - is hundreds of pounds below the average market rent in many places now. Nah, I'm sure that's not a problem.

well polly toynbee says that's actually fine and not a problem

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/24/british-people-andy-burnham-goodwill-gestures

Toynbee gonna Toynbee ffs