After leaving office, reports claimed that Burnham and his predecessor as health secretary, Alan Johnson, had rejected 81 requests for an inquiry sitting in public to examine the high rate of deaths at Stafford Hospital
4th in the list of top ten most outrageous expense claims – another ‘thief’.
Credit: http://www.acumenimages.com. Uploaded to Flickr by The Health Hotel., CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
As mentioned by Mike Graham and Kevin O’Sullivan the self styled King o’t North has now been christened the Knob o’t North. The story so far is hard to believe.
The mascara man has been a useless Mayor and previously a useless Minister along with being a failed Leadership contender; for heaven’s sake, the Militwat beat him in that contest. It now appears that he will be crowned leader of the Labour Party soon after nominations close on July 9th. It’s all a bit of a phoney war, Rodney Spanner was going to fight to the bitter end, various other contenders were definitely going to stand and all have fallen by the wayside. Rodney himself has resigned and the likes of Crayons, the Militwat, cLammy et al are nowhere to be seen. It is going to be a coronation isn’t it. We have been here before, see NikNak for more unfavourable details.
The only sensible explanation is that those who actually make the decisions, and none of those are in the House of Shame, have decided the present PM is not up to it even though he has carried out their wishes to the letter so far and the Knob o’t North is now the answer to their prayers. Rodney has been given his marching orders and the other hopefuls have been told to back off. Bit of a shame really, Crayons desperately wants to be Labour’s first female PM and cLammy, even more desperately, wants to be our first black PM. NikNak was obviously not black enough. Hopefully Spanner has done enough to destroy Labour for a generation.
Many political commentators are certain that Bodybags will indeed be a complete knob and therefore a disaster as PM. As mentioned above his track record is not good. I am not sure if they have to have a vote on him if there is no other candidate, maybe he is just waved through. This from the Party that spent its lifetime moaning about the Tory men in suits and the old magic circle. There are reports that the members are furious at being denied a say on who their next leader will be.
Just as nature abhors a vacuum, the same rules to the political world. Spanner seems to be retreating into his shell and the mice in the shape of Labour backbenchers and some Ministers are making their points strongly. They have demanded 50% of the Cabinet must be female and any Cabinet meeting must have at least one woman present. This is all a bit rich coming from a Party that still can’t define what a woman is. Even Spanner is on the odd occasion getting his two penneth worth in and lecturing Bodybags that he cannot ignore diplomacy.
There have been similar demands about policy and the poor old Knob is being bounced from wall to wall. He has pontificated on most of these demands by agreeing to cave in to most of them and some of these demands are conflicting.
One of the big talking points about Bodybags coming in as Prime Minister is will he or won’t he call an election. The Tories of course are howling for an election, their problem is they have a lot of previous in this respect. They installed PM after PM without an election so telling Labour they can’t do the same is ironic to say the least. Labour know they will be hammered if the people get a vote so those who previously demanded the Tories give us a vote are now on the quiet side. The Knob himself has been all over the place. Of course we will have an election, on the other hand maybe not, well we might but then we won’t. The latest, and probably the final word on the subject is a rather loud no. So that’s that. The only question now is can the Knob see out the next three years.
Spanner’s final gift has been the defence review. Unable to cut the soaring welfare bill Rodney and Rachel have employed sleight of hand. Trying to conjure up £15 billion for the armed forces has been partially solved by cutting about £10 billion from various existing military schemes and leaving the Knob to find the other £5 billion. He will have to raise taxes won’t he because the backbenchers have had a taste of power when refusing to agree to welfare cuts. They are hardly likely to back down now. The welfare bill is only going to increase.
The Knob is in favour of deporting the soon to be freed leader of the Rochdale grooming gangs, The legal types insist he cannot be deported because of existing laws and Pakistan is refusing to take him back. Maybe the Knob will flex his muscles and make it happen just like he has promised to do. I fear all this bravado will be long forgotten by the time his feet slide under the desk at Number 10.
One of the Knob’s big aspirations is to do things differently including having a Number 10 in Manchester. This will allegedly cost a few hundred million to set up and projections are that it won’t be ready until 2032 by which time we will hopefully have seen the back of the Labour Party. As far as doing things differently goes you don’t have to be clairvoyant to predict lots more of the same old. These people will say anything to get the job.
What we need to remember is that until he actually gets the PM’s job, the Knob can be all things to all men. Once his tenure begins he then needs to be serious but he has never given any indication he can pull that off. Step one will be to appoint a Cabinet. It looks certain Rachel from Complaints will be out but who will replace her, even the left are unconvinced by the Militwat who craves the job. Even the revolting Dale Vince is recanting some of his nonsense. The Donald has now given his considered opinion that he would not approve of Red Ed getting the job. The Labour Party is so perverse they will probably make sure he does get it.
The latest I have just seen is the Knob’s mates in’t north want to put a wealth tax on all those rich bar stewards in’t south. Presumably they think we all live in houses that are worth millions. The all inclusive people can be very divisive.
And the final update concerns Crayons. In spite of her brown nosing all and sundry in an attempt to get a place in the Cabinet, she does not stand a chance. She is wildly popular in the Labour Party and among MPs but in the wider world she is thoroughly detested. Even Team Burnham (what a horrible title) have recognised she would be toxic to the majority of the country. Will she even get a junior position somewhere, perhaps but whatever happens while she is absent from the Cabinet she will be stirring up brown stuff in the background. Hell hath no fury as they say.
Other than the sycophants in us Labour, I have to agree with all the other political commentators that the Knob will be a total disaster. It remains to be seen how long he will last. In the race to the bottom since John Major took over from Maggie, it has been a sorry list of each being worse than the previous one. If Reform do win the next election, I can’t see Nigel Farage being a great success either. As that Scots laddie used to say in Dad’s Army, we are doomed I tell you, doomed.
I guess the next election will be all about obliterating Labour and finally finishing off the Tories. We may need to wait a while until we have a capable leader or perhaps we can become the fifty first state of the US. You may mock but it would save our politicians from making fools of themselves time and time again.
© well_chuffed 2026
