(Read on, or view here: https://youtu.be/nq1yLRxvlY4) With Andy Burnham poised to pick up the keys to Number Ten we’re all set for a new style of government. A new vibe. But as yet there’s no way of knowing whether that’ll translate into a new and better deal for the rest of us. It’s not like we’ve had any say in the matter. Half a century ago the Czech writer Milan Kundera was penning his seminal novel The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, which explored the impact on the li

(Read on, or view here: https://youtu.be/DfQvq0ANIiA) Our incoming Prime Minister’s got a lot on his plate. Even more than he bargained for, thanks to the gristly leftovers scraped onto it from the outgoing guy’s not very tasty treat. Andy Burnham’s got to gulp it all down somehow, but it’ll take all his fabled communication skills to avoid leaving a nasty taste in everyone else’s mouth. ‘I’m afraid there’s no money.’ That scrawled note left by a Labour Treasury minister for

(Read on, or view here: https://youtu.be/PkChAbgN6xU) It’s now all but certain that in under three weeks’ time Andy Burnham will be Prime Minister. A mere month after the by-election that got him back into parliament. A staggering turnaround even by today’s excitable standards. Point of fact, it’s thought that he would have preferred to have had a bit more time to sort himself out. As it is, rather like Lenin stumbling back to Russia from his Swiss exile in 1917, he’s got to

(Read on, or view here: https://youtu.be/WQ1V4rRsnhI) Andy Burnham’s win in the Makerfield by-election, historic by any standards, means all bets are off. Keir Starmer still seems determined not to go down without a fight. But his options are narrowing by the day. ‘In office but not in power.’ That barb, hurled at a one-time Tory Prime Minister in his Chancellor’s oft-quoted resignation speech is as relevant today as it was back then. Even Starmer’s closest allies accept that