Andrew Neil Just Called Andy Burnham’s Economic Plan Fairy Dust - Veteran broadcaster Andrew Neil has declared the Prime Minister’s big-state, high-tax, more-nationalisation vision of growth pure fantasy, telling Triggernometry that Burnham is “away with the fairies.” While the rest of the country stares at soaring debt, rising interest rates and a winter cost-of-living crunch, King of the North is still peddling the idea that more government control will magically deliver Scandinavian-level welfare on Mid-Atlantic taxes. If this is the plan, the fairies better start printing money.

We haven't had neoliberalism for decades. Instead we have a system where central banks suppress risk, governments rescue failure and taxpayers absorb losses. Gains are privatised; risks are socailised. This isn't capitalism; it's the opposite. thetimes.com/comment/columni…

This is nonsense dressed up as honesty. British bills are among Europe's highest because successive governments — of both parties — refused to build and refused to produce. The UK has not commissioned a nuclear power station that actually opened since Sizewell B in 1995. Instead UK squeezed another decade and more out of the old British Energy AGR fleet, running reactors far beyond the lives their own accounts assumed, because no one in Westminster wanted to own a twenty-year decision. Hinkley Point C was meant to be lighting homes by now. That is not the failure of privatisation. That is the failure of politicians to plan beyond a parliament. UK then did the same to the North Sea sitting on a mature, world-class basin with the skills and supply chain to match, and taxing it at a headline 78 per cent, rewriting the terms repeatedly, and told investors their licences have no future. So production falls faster than demand, and they import the same molecules by tanker — at a higher price, with a bigger carbon footprint, and with the jobs offshored to Qatar and Texas. Solar panels on libraries will not fix this. Baseload will. Until a government is willing to say so, bills will stay high — whoever owns the wires.

Middle East Eye is at it again and this time,unfortunately,with Somaliland officials helping provide the ammunition. Its latest article begins and ends by demonizing and portraying Somaliland’s locally popular relations with Israel through the prism of confrontation,such as Israel vs Turkey,Israel vs the Houthis,and Somaliland as an Israeli "bridgehead" in the Horn. A framing that by reducing Somaliland into a pawn in a regional rivarly may play well to the audience at the Amiri Diwan in Doha,but hardly tells Somaliland’s own story. Somaliland officials should understand that interviews they give can be used to fit Somaliland into someone else's geopolitical storyline. middleeasteye.net/news/israe…

Source: youtube.com/watch?v=HR0Z5oyA…

Here are two career politicians who have never built a business that had to survive on its own. Their entire adult lives have been spent inside politics - drawing salaries, climbing political ladders, and spending other people’s money - without ever running a business, making a payroll, or answering to a customer who could simply walk away.

The most closely watched barometer of financial stress in European bond markets has climbed to its highest level since the eurozone debt crisis. The difference, or spread, between France and Germany's benchmark yields jumped to 1.3 percentage point. France’s parlous fiscal position comes to the fore as PM presents 2027 budget unlikely to pass parliament.

There are occasions in politics when one has to give credit to somebody with whom one profoundly disagrees, and Andy Burnham's speech to the Labour Party Conference today was one of them. As a piece of political theatre, it was exceptionally well delivered. It was aspirational, carefully constructed and calculated to speak directly to many of the anxieties now troubling the country. I can understand perfectly well why those sitting in the conference hall responded to it as they did. Yet, having listened carefully to what Burnham actually said, I was left with considerably more questions than answers. Indeed, the speech encapsulated precisely why I have become so distrustful of his politics. It is one thing to identify what people desperately want to hear; it is quite another to demonstrate that government can afford to give it to them. That distinction matters to me because I supported Keir Starmer for almost the opposite reason. Whatever criticisms can now be made of his premiership, I believed there was a seriousness to his original proposition: do not promise the electorate what cannot be delivered simply for the gratification of immediate applause. After fourteen and a half years of Conservative government, Britain was not a country that could simply be turned around by ministerial decree. The economic damage, the deterioration of public services, the burden of debt and the consequences of our departure from the European Union had accumulated over many years. The country resembled a great ship proceeding inexorably towards disaster. The immediate task was not to pretend that it could somehow be spun around in the water; it was to arrest its course, stabilise it and begin the long and difficult process of putting it into reverse before a different direction could properly be established. Such a process was inevitably going to be slow, difficult and, at times, deeply unpopular. Yet that is the uncomfortable distinction between governing a country and addressing an enthusiastic conference hall. The former requires difficult choices, patience and an acceptance that economic reality cannot simply be wished away; the latter permits rather greater freedom to describe the destination without necessarily explaining every stage of the journey required to reach it. It is against that background that Burnham's proposals on pensions and social care must be examined. There is an entirely legitimate debate to be had about the future of the State Pension triple lock. But that debate requires some historical perspective. Many of today's pensioners entered employment at fifteen or sixteen and spent forty, fifty or more years paying tax and National Insurance under a social contract that successive generations understood perfectly well. While they were working, their contributions helped sustain the pensions, healthcare and public services required by those who had already retired; when their own working lives eventually ended, the next generation would enter the workforce and continue that compact. There was nothing novel about one working generation helping to support the retired generation before it. That was an essential part of the post war welfare settlement. Those who have honoured their side of that bargain throughout an entire working life are therefore entitled to expect that, if government now proposes to alter the settlement, it explains precisely what is changing, why that change is necessary and what protection they will retain. Burnham proposes to change that arrangement after the present Parliament and to use savings arising from pension reform as part of the means of financing his proposed National Care Service. Superficially, it is an attractive political proposition: reform one expensive commitment and use the proceeds to address another of the great unresolved injustices within British society. The difficulty, however, is that the arithmetic thus far presented does not demonstrate that the proposition can withstand serious financial scrutiny. That is hardly a peripheral objection to be resolved at some later date; it goes to the very credibility of what is being promised. If Britain is to establish a National Care Service capable of providing care free at the point of need, while protecting people from the potentially ruinous costs associated with old age, disability and conditions such as dementia, then we are contemplating one of the most significant extensions of the welfare state for generations. Such an undertaking cannot rest upon aspiration alone. It requires a detailed and credible explanation of its cost, its scope and, above all, how it is to be paid for. The comparison between cancer and dementia illustrates the injustice particularly starkly. A person diagnosed with cancer can expect their medical treatment to be provided by the National Health Service without their home being placed at risk to meet the cost of that treatment. Yet another person, through no fault or choice of their own, may develop dementia and require years of social care for which substantial personal assets can ultimately be consumed. There is something profoundly unsatisfactory about that distinction, and any government capable of resolving it would deserve considerable credit. But that makes it all the more important that the promise is defined with absolute clarity. Will care itself be free while accommodation remains chargeable? Which costs will continue to fall upon the individual? What will happen to means testing? How will residential care be treated? Most importantly, what will the complete system cost once all of those promises have been translated from the conference platform into statutory entitlements available to millions of people? These questions cannot simply be dismissed as the preoccupation of accountants. They represent the difference between an attractive political aspiration and a programme capable of surviving contact with the realities of government. The same principle must apply when we discuss the wider welfare state. A social settlement cannot consist exclusively of obligations placed upon the taxpayer and entitlements granted to the individual. Any enduring social contract must contain responsibilities on both sides. Those who genuinely cannot work must be protected. I would defend that principle without hesitation. A civilised country does not abandon people because illness, disability or circumstances beyond their control prevent them from supporting themselves. But where somebody is capable of working, there must also come a point at which society is entitled to expect a contribution in return for the support it provides. That is why I believe there is a legitimate case for a modern form of National Service. I do not mean the indiscriminate military conscription of an earlier age. I mean a properly structured system of paid employment, training and community service for those who have remained outside the workforce for an extended period, with military service forming one possible route where an individual is suitable and the Armed Forces consider it appropriate. The principle is neither punitive nor particularly revolutionary. It is the principle upon which generations built their lives: work brings responsibilities as well as rewards. One learns to arrive on time, to work alongside others, to accept instruction, to acquire skills, to complete what one has undertaken and, ultimately, to understand the relationship between personal endeavour and personal advancement. If politicians are prepared to tell pensioners who may have begun work at fifteen or sixteen and contributed for half a century that the settlement upon which they planned their retirement must now change in the interests of a new social contract, then they must be equally prepared to discuss what that contract requires of those of working age who are capable of contributing. There can be no credible social contract in which responsibility travels in only one direction. Yet even these enormous questions ultimately return us to the issue Britain continues to approach with extraordinary reluctance: economic growth and our relationship with Europe. Burnham was right to acknowledge that Brexit has done more harm than good. That acknowledgement matters, because the debate can no longer sensibly be conducted as though Britain were still standing in the polling booth in June 2016. We now possess years of evidence about what leaving our largest trading bloc has meant for trade, investment, productivity and economic performance. The central question is therefore no longer whether one happened to vote Leave or Remain a decade ago. It is what relationship with Europe best serves the interests of Britain now. That question cannot be separated from Burnham's other ambitions. Every one of them ultimately encounters the same economic reality. A National Care Service, a properly funded NHS, credible defence, better education, secure pensions and rising living standards all depend upon the country's capacity to generate the wealth from which those commitments must be financed. Government can redistribute existing wealth, increase taxation or borrow, but there are limits to each. Ultimately, the only sustainable means by which a country can support substantially better public services without endlessly increasing the burden upon its citizens is to enlarge the economy from which those services are financed. That is why Europe is not some peripheral constitutional argument to be revisited for sentimental reasons. It is central to the economic question confronting Britain. Nor is the issue now solely economic. The strategic environment has altered profoundly. Britain and its European neighbours face threats and uncertainties that were scarcely imaginable in their present form when the referendum took place. Economic strength, defence, energy security and geopolitical influence are becoming increasingly inseparable. Britain, France and Germany possess between them extraordinary economic, diplomatic and military weight. The question Britain must eventually answer is whether our national interest is better served by attempting perpetually to influence Europe from its margins or by once again participating fully in shaping its direction. For me, that means the question of European Union membership must eventually return to legitimate political debate. Burnham did not answer that question today. He approached it, acknowledged part of the problem and indicated a desire for a closer relationship, but stopped short of telling the country where that journey ultimately leads. And perhaps that encapsulates my difficulty with the speech as a whole. There is much in Burnham's diagnosis of Britain's difficulties with which I can agree, and much in his ambition for the country that I would like to see achieved. But wanting something to be possible does not make it so, and eloquence from a conference platform cannot absolve a prospective government from the altogether sterner disciplines of arithmetic, economic reality and implementation. If the triple lock is to be changed, show us precisely what replaces it. If the savings are to finance social care, show us the figures demonstrating that they can do so. If care is to become free at the point of need, define exactly what "free" means and what remains chargeable. If we are constructing a new social contract, explain not only what citizens may expect from the state but what the state may reasonably expect from those capable of contributing. And if Brexit has indeed done more harm than good, have the courage to tell the country where our relationship with Europe should ultimately lead. Burnham demonstrated today that he understands the aspirations of an electorate weary of being told what cannot be done. What he has yet to demonstrate is that he possesses a credible and fully financed programme capable of doing what he says can be done. That is the distinction upon which my judgement of his speech ultimately rests. It was an impressive exercise in political aspiration and, in places, a masterclass in populism. But Britain does not merely need another politician capable of describing a better country. It needs a government capable of paying for one.

I fear this winter Britain is heading for the terrible trifecta: a gilt crisis, a sterling crisis, and an energy crisis. Hard times ahead.

One positive action which can come out of Somaliland Prez Irro's visit to US would be for US State Department to quickly separate Somaliland's travel advisory from that of Somalia. In no way are conditions the same: Hargeisa does not deserve the "Do not Travel;" Mogadishu does!

Andy Burnham, Britain’s prime minister, promises a bigger state. But many are opting out of it altogether economist.com/britain/2026/0…

🚨 BREAKING: Somaliland’s Minister of Interior and National Security, Abdalle Mohamed Arab, has met with Taiwan’s President, marking another significant step in the rapidly deepening partnership between the two countries. The meeting comes during a major week for Somaliland’s international engagement, as the Republic also became a founding member of the World Alliance for Disaster Management. Somaliland–Taiwan relations continue to expand beyond diplomacy into security, institutional cooperation, national resilience and disaster preparedness.