Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Rental market is a mixed bag according to Zoopla but the tumbling price of flats is a big story. Greedy service charges and leaseholding is to blame. I got lucky buying and selling my flat but no way would I risk purchasing a leasehold property ever again.

Behind this figure are two distinct markets, with rents rising 5% or more in affordable areas and at or below the UK average in pricier places

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/discover/prope ... et-report/

One thing he could do is take council estate management back in house. I've paid shit loads over the years in service charges to people who take forever to answer the phone and can't even be bothered to pull up the weeds.

Gaza. Gaza. It's always fucking Gaza.

Andy Burnham has apologised for Labour’s initial response to Israel’s military action in Gaza, saying the party “didn’t get it right” and needs to “do better” under his leadership signalling a significant shift in the UK’s approach to the Middle East.

The prime minister-in-waiting told the Guardian he would put more pressure on the Israeli government, including through further sanctions on individuals and entities, as well as a potential ban on the trade of goods with illegal settlements...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... e-gaza-war

Let's woo the tankies back.

Not a good idea Andy.

Burnham’s intervention starts to address concerns among voters on Labour’s progressive flank, many of whom have abandoned the party over its position on Israel and Palestine.

“I know many people feel that at the start of Israel’s military action in Gaza my party didn’

t get it right and I am sorry about that. The response has too often not been good enough. We need to do better,” he said.

"Labour’s progressive flank", or swivel-eyed antisemitic single-issue morons as I prefer to call them. Most of whom left the Party because its new leader wasn't going to pander to their lunacy.

...Burnham’s apology may irritate Keir Starmer...

Starmer’s not the one to worry about. If he's sucking up to the single-issue Student Union types he's going to piss off a lot of Labour voters, and hand live ammunition to our Noble Free Press (tm).

I know I said I'd give him 6 months to prove he can do the job, but I'm becoming sceptical before he's even got the job.

Said it before, will say it again: he's nothing more than a populist who'll say anything he thinks will make him popular.

All style, no substance.

I think this is a reasonable statement overall. Slightly muddled- obviously there have been war crimes, and he hasn’t leant too heavily into the more questionable genocide. The tankies won’t be happy about that, he’s not bothered about them.

What’s he going to do in terms of sanctions? Trump can flatten us if he doesn’t like that. Don’t watch this space,

Burnham is quite correct to address the Gaza issue early doors. Starmer’s initial badly mis-judged response to the Israeli retaliation attacks on Gaza damaged Labour quite badly, particularly in areas with high concentrations of muslim voters like many areas here in Brum. Opportunist “Independent” candidates that ran campaigns almost exclusively on the Gaza issue didn’t help, for sure, but it arguably cost at least one Birmingham Labour MP (Khalid Mahmood) his seat. The issue still hasn’t gone completely away yet, so Burnham taking it on is good sense.

Well according to the FT Shabana Mahmood is set to be named as the Chancellor which has provoked outrage on blue sky.

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Wed Jul 15, 2026 5:28 pm Well according to the FT Shabana Mahmood is set to be named as the Chancellor which has provoked outrage on blue sky.

Nothing less than Richard Burgon will do.

Anyone without a reputation for being hard will raise the borrowing costs. I’d have kept Reeves.

Fuck Bluesky. They'd only be happy with Corbyn/McDonnell or Plankski getting his ideas from some fucking influencer.

One of his early tests will be sorting the NJC pay dispute. Unite's ballot for industrial action opens today. He could sort it quickly and quietly before Mail readers and middle-England's bins stop getting collected. Their bin collection obsession is the one thing that would draw attention to the matter more than anything else. Nuclear war is a more palatable prospect than not getting their bins collected to Mr and Mrs Daily Mail reader.

Around 200,000 local government and school support staff at more than 500 employers across England and Wales are being balloted on whether they're prepared to take industrial action over the ‘full and final’ 3.3% pay offer for 2026/27 the employers have asked unions to accept without negotiation.

Industrial action is always a last resort. But it becomes inevitable when a workforce crucial to the smooth operation of UK services is repeatedly expected to absorb another year of falling living standards.

Local government and school support workers have already seen the spending power of their pay fall by an average of around 26% since 2010. Typically, for a teaching assistant that's equivalent to around £7,000 in lost real-terms pay, and as much as £18,000 for a social worker, when measured against RPI inflation.

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Wed Jul 15, 2026 5:28 pm Well according to the FT Shabana Mahmood is set to be named as the Chancellor which has provoked outrage on blue sky.

To be honest we need to row back on some of the harsher immigration situations. We certainty need a better approach to International students even if that is only to loosen restrictions in key areas such as Nursing and the STEM Subjects

I'm hopeful that the bill we be amended to remove some of its harsher and more counterproductive edges. Perhaps Streeting is being lined up for the job? He would probably do that. He doesn't care about there being too many overseas students.

I see the economy grew slightly in April, and the overall growth for the year has been upgraded. But apparently, we need to sack Rachel Reeves.

Burnham's speech.

https://labourlist.org/2026/07/read-and ... r-in-full/

Boiler wrote: ↑Wed Jul 15, 2026 9:01 pm Fuck Bluesky. They'd only be happy with Corbyn/McDonnell or Plankski getting his ideas from some fucking influencer.

What Bluesky wants or to be precise what people I follow on Bluesky wants is Ed Milliband.

Burnham's set himself a high bar to promise the Holy Grail of politics which is revitalising post industrial regions. Will he persuade voters in more leafy constituencies who swing elections to cough up for ambitious German levels of fiscal transfers after unification?
Burnham is being disingenuous with his '40 years of neoliberalism,' blighting these areas. He was in the government that implemented an ambitious neighborhood renewal programme that targeted the poorest wards on the basis of need. And Andy doesn't have Brown's war chest or EU structural funds to finance levelling up.
Pleased with Burnham's speech but not brimming political excitement.

You. Fucking. Populist. Twat.

Burnham to announce plans for new North Sea oil and gas drilling

I must be the only person here in favour of this. What matters is consumption emissions, not production ones. Talking of which:

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/ ... heat-pumps

Andy Burnham is considering radical plans that could cut household energy bills by £130 a year and make running a heat pump cheaper than a gas boiler.

In his speech on Friday as he became the new Labour leader, Burnham promised to reduce the price of “essentials”, and a cost of living package is expected to be one of his first announcements in Downing Street.

The energy proposal, drawn up by the thinktank Nesta and being examined by Burnham’s team, would change the way household gas is charged and remove some policy levies from bills, at a cost of £3.2bn a year to the taxpayer.

Making electricity cheaper relative to gas would make running heat pumps a more attractive option, and shave £130 off average bills.

Estimates for revenue from the new exploration seem to be all over the place, but they should help fund some of this. Or they don't, and we don't have to worry about the production emissions.

Quite a good FT piece here, about how Burnham's plot to oust Starmer has been long a brewing :

https://www.ft.com/content/78d9690a-b43 ... xWckkehwJQ

Abernathy wrote: ↑Sat Jul 18, 2026 12:54 pm Quite a good FT piece here, about how Burnham's plot to oust Starmer has been long a brewing :

https://www.ft.com/content/78d9690a-b43 ... xWckkehwJQ

Can you screenshot or cut and paste it