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Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

reuters.com

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Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#91

Post by pjc50 »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #61
pjc50 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The police swerved hard into deploying state capacity against exactly the wrong people: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/12/more-women-arres... Meanwhile ignoring the actually violent far right to the point that we had arson attacks in Belfast and a stabbing spree killer in Edinburgh.

Police has no choice but to arrest people who commit a serious criminal offence on purpose and very publicly. It would undermine their credibility and the rule of law not to arrest them. This is orthogonal with how police should tackle the violence you mention. Edit in response to @pjc50's replay below: The signs are a serious criminal offence. Supporting a proscribed terror organisation is a serious criminal offence…

> What constitutes a "serious criminal offence" is not subjective based on one's personal opinion, it is what the law defines as such

This was literally a decision Starmer personally made, to put Palestine Action on the proscribed organization list. Without that the signs would not be an offence.

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#92

Post by Hikikomori »

pjc50 wrote: post #84
AlecSchueler wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to the point that we had arson attacks in Belfast Not to argue against the point you're making but these aren't good examples. Policing in both Northern Ireland and Scotland are fully devolved and operate independently of the government in Westminster.

True. The modern far right is both a social media and traditional media driven phenomenon, internationally, and I don't have great suggestions for dealing with it other than "maybe the government should boycott Twitter before they ban sixteen year olds from it".

The old far right was also media driven with der sturmer.

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#93

Post by black6 »

pjc50 wrote: post #52
OgsyedIE wrote: post #14

Whilst the value of the pound and NHS backlog did slowly improve under Starmer, my favourite part of his term was the 2024 interview where he described himself as not dreaming or having internal thoughts. I don't expect huge improvements under Burnham but I hope for at least some police manpower numbers to recover. There have been intermittent stories of planning, FSA and trading standards personnel being threatened…

The police swerved hard into deploying state capacity against exactly the wrong people: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/12/more-women-arres... Meanwhile ignoring the actually violent far right to the point that we had arson attacks in Belfast and a stabbing spree killer in Edinburgh.

What were the Belfast arson and Edinburgh stabbing in response to?

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#94

Post by throwaway27448 »

gadders wrote: post #15
bluescrn wrote: post #4

And he'll be just as powerless to solve any of the big problems as the last half a dozen PMs.

Well Starmer had a massive majority and could have got whatever was needed passed to sort out public finances, but his MPs rebelled (or he chickened out).

He was elected to ensure nothing corbyn worked for would succeed, and in that sense he was perfect.

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#95

Post by throwaway27448 »

bluescrn wrote: post #83
cassianoleal wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one thing that might be in his power: to stop censoring and arresting people protesting against genocide. Edit: lol thanks HN for the usual downvote! :) I love this place!

Locking up placard-wavers is stupid, but so is intentionally waving a placard with the name of a proscribed group, when just about any other message supporting the cause would be fine. If you do a million pounds in criminal damage and attack a police officer with a sledgehammer, you can't just write it off as 'direct action', you deserve a tough jail sentence whatever the cause.

> proscribed group

If the government is legitimately evil for proscribing a group they should be able to deal with their constituents calling them out for it. Materially hindering a genocide is by all currently accepted human standards a good thing.

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#97

Post by gadders »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #19
gadders wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...or any topic really. More people on the right than the left are being jailed for hurty words.

Getting constantly distracted by foreign-policy items 90% of voters barely care about is how the UK wound up in this mess.

Oh agreed. If anyone cares that much travel back to whichever country they support and enlist. Also renounce your British citizenship at the same time.

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#98

Post by gadders »

OgsyedIE wrote: post #14

Whilst the value of the pound and NHS backlog did slowly improve under Starmer, my favourite part of his term was the 2024 interview where he described himself as not dreaming or having internal thoughts. I don't expect huge improvements under Burnham but I hope for at least some police manpower numbers to recover. There have been intermittent stories of planning, FSA and trading standards personnel being threatened…

>>There have been intermittent stories of planning, FSA and trading standards personnel being threatened by armed gangs in the last few years which is an indicator of some new severe gaps in state capacity.

Yes, chiefly immigration policy.

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#99

Post by gadders »

pjc50 wrote: post #52
OgsyedIE wrote: post #14

Whilst the value of the pound and NHS backlog did slowly improve under Starmer, my favourite part of his term was the 2024 interview where he described himself as not dreaming or having internal thoughts. I don't expect huge improvements under Burnham but I hope for at least some police manpower numbers to recover. There have been intermittent stories of planning, FSA and trading standards personnel being threatened…

The police swerved hard into deploying state capacity against exactly the wrong people: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/12/more-women-arres... Meanwhile ignoring the actually violent far right to the point that we had arson attacks in Belfast and a stabbing spree killer in Edinburgh.

And also ignoring that whole Rape Gang thing.

Re: Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

#100

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #25
mellosouls wrote: post #18

Ridiculous and undemocratic. Burnham (for those who are unaware) can be best described as a Tony Blair B-side, and is most notable from his previous stint in government for his role in the Private Finance Initiative disaster, eg: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jun/28/labour-debt-peter...

Agree with your first sentence but he is described as being on the very left wing of the party and, if he becomes PM, it will be with the support of the left wing, not the blairites.

> he is described as being on the very left wing of the party

By whom, and why are they worth taking seriously? Some politicians these days say all kinds of deranged nonsense about their opponents, and very often paint them as "far left" regardless of actual position. It's not worth taking at face value if it comes from there.

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