Politics: a day to regret

By Richard North - July 20, 2026

Having done my best to ignore him for the past week or so, I suppose I must confront the horror show that is the tenure of Andy “Crash and Burn’em” (hat tip Pete) as prime minister for as long as it takes for his party to get rid of him.

To reinforce the impression that we no longer do serious politics in this country, we are variously regaled with commentary on how Mr Burn’em makes his tea, to the solemn news that  – in the style of Zelensky, man of the people – he will not wear a shirt and tie at work, except during his visits to the Commons.

But the picture that encapsulates the image of a nation which has turned its politics into a branch of show business is published in the Guardian. It shows the substantial works to prepare the press enclosure in Downing Street for the hacks to witness the arrival of the demi-god at his new place of work (see above).

Whatever happened, one might have thought, to the simple press enclosure, with a few snappers lined up to take their pics in ambient light, with no particular drama? Now we have elaborate lighting gantries, all ready for the first episode of the Crash and Burn’em soap opera as the rising star addresses his adoring public (not) for the first time as prime minister.

One assumes he will be tie-less on this occasion, although one presumes he will at least wear one when he presents himself to the king at Buckingham Palace for his formal appointment. He will have plenty of time to change in his armoured Range Rover on the way back.

His first job, the Guardian tells us, will be to appoint a new cabinet – although the full range of ministerial appointments usually runs into the second day. But given the dearth of talent in the parliamentary Labour Party, this is more a matter of sorting the dregs from the dross. It doesn’t really matter who is appointed – they will all be identikit socialist wastrels.

New cabinet appointments notwithstanding, we are told to expect a policy blitz next week, but laying the ground for this venture, the newly minted prime minister is said to be prepared to strike “an optimistic but also realistic note about the problems facing Britain that must be confronted”.

This is an interesting concoction of words, as we read of problems facing Britain “that must be confronted”, which suggests that there are problems which mustn’t be confronted or simply won’t be by Crash and Burn’em. And considering that, in all his recent statements to date, immigration has been notably absent, one assumes that the attendant problems are in the “don’t confront” category.

Papers such as the Guardian have obviously been given an advance copy of the impromptu speech, but they persist with the pretence that they going to get anything different than the closely scripted speech. Thus, they resort to the laborious convention of telling us what their new idol “is expected to say”.

Amongst those “expectations” is the assertion that Mr Burn’em will say that the country faces a moment for “reflection and resolution”, although I don’t think that many people will either be reflecting or resolving, and a goodly few will be more interested in revolution.

But he is also going to tell us that he is “acutely conscious” of being the seventh person to walk up Downing Street in 10 years and will thus argue that political stability is needed. This is taken to be an implicit rejection of calls for an election when Labour potentially has another three years in power.

For the rest, we can expect wholesale amounts of extruded verbal material – but from a man who has been away from the seat of power for a long time and probably has little grasp of the practicalities of governing fractious peoples in a state which is largely dysfunctional and close to insolvency.

Thus, the one thing we cannot expect is precisely that which Burn’em says he will deliver: “stable and responsible” politics to Britain. Stability is not within his gift and the idea of a socialist politician being responsible is a contradiction in terms.

For all that, hubris is very much to the fore. I recall Starmer talking of ten-year plans – shortly before his party ditched him. Now it seems, the new prime minister is also talking of a 10-year plan for the country, with more focus on “early investment” to ensure that the British state is “setting people up for success” rather than paying for failure.

If anyone wanted an example of vacuous extruded verbal material, this is it. There are approximately ten million working-age people in the UK claiming combinations of Department for Work and Pensions benefits, of whom roughly 6.5 million are claiming out-of-work benefits, while 4.2 million claim health or disability-related benefits.

So distorted is the welfare system that, with the payments made and the turnkey benefits, avoiding work has become the logical career choice for anyone with aspirations of being paid more than the minimum wage, while the influx of unskilled migrants has robbed the economy of many “starter jobs”, condemning record numbers of young people to a life of unemployment.

The state has now developed “failure” into the main option for a generation of workers, bankrupting the treasury in the process, and there is nothing that Burn’em is likely to do about this dire situation, other than tax those in work that much more, in order to finance the burgeoning welfare bill.

Speaking of failures, the Telegraph is telling us that Burn’em “plans new era of big state” and is poised to extend the reach of the state from day one, with a raft of nationalisation plans.

British Steel is already marked down for this treatment, which going to absorb a considerable amount of political and diplomatic bandwidth, as China’s Jingye angrily demands compensation, calling the government’s takeover “blatant extortion and a flagrant violation of international law”.

Next amongst Burn’em’s proposed targets is the National Lottery, with culture Secretary Lisa Nandy (for the moment) already preparing a consultation on the issue, amid concerns about the current operator’s performance.

Also under consideration is the temporary nationalisation of Thames Water in an attempt to resolve the company’s debt crisis, with debts stacked up to £19.77 billion and the company functionally insolvent. That one isn’t going to be easy to solve as the utility has structural and operational problems as well.

But behind Thames Water is a queue of debtors. All the nine other major water and sewerage companies (and several smaller water-only companies) carry massive debt, pushing the industry’s total debt mountain past £60 billion and once the Thames domino falls, the others aren’t going to be far behind.

Although a problem not of his making, Burn’em has inherited a shit-show which is boiling up to a crisis point..

When England’s water systems were privatised in 1989, the government wiped out all existing debt but, since then, private companies have milked their consumer base, using the healthy cash flow to leverage massive borrowing, some £85 billion of which has been paid out in shareholder dividends.

Exploiting their regional monopolies, the companies – with the complicity of a gutless regulator and the indifference of successive governments – have racked up steep bill increases to customers – with average real-term increases rising up to 40-50 percent, largely to service the acquired debt rather invest in infrastructure.

This is a problem Burn’em is going to wish he never had and it is one of several that are poised to derail his shiny new administration. Yet, despite that, it is said that he wants to put more housing stock on the public balance sheet, albeit that government plans to build new houses are turning out to be fiction.

A glutton for punishment, though, we are told that a Burn’em government is preparing for an expansion of Labour’s plans to bring local bus services into public ownership, following a model pioneered by the former mayor in Greater Manchester.

Critics from diverse sources suggest that these plans risks damaging the country’s growth prospects by reversing the post-Thatcher consensus that market forces should shape public services.

With British Rail on life support, the water industry in turmoil, the gas and electricity industries groaning under the weight of net-zero stupidities – with the national grid close to collapse – and steel production back in public ownership – the Thatcher dream is turning to dust. That Burn’em is now left to manage the wreckage couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke.

For those who watch Burn’em today, they should make the most of the experience as this will probably be the last time they see the prime minister with a genuinely happy face. As time goes on, he may live to regret his taking up the post – others most certainly will.