Who's writing Andy Burnham's scripts?

drakes drum

Mr Blackburn. I have a problem. I appear to be getting Labour List when I click on Coffee House.

You see, I do not wish to read about incomptetent politicians within the Labour Party, especially those that feel the need to enhance their appearance, on television, by the use of mascara and other make up!

I wish to learn what the great 'leader' Cameron and his excellent team of toffs have planned for us all, should they win the next general election.

I would also much prefer blogs on real issues and certainly not, on what appears to be your favourite subject, Labour issues.

Perhaps, prior to writing your next epistle you could concentrate on Tory issues and not this discredited government.

By the way, would you say that Cameron is a tory or a whig?

I just happen to believe he is bringing back the Whigs to fail again!

Frank P

Characteristically, Mark Steyn cuts to the quick:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmI3YzBjMTI4NDVjMjViMThjM2VhMzQwYjY4YjdkODE=

Kermit

Jim Henson?

Nicholas

Burnham is a dangerous idiot and the sooner he and those like him are removed from positions where they have control of our lives the better. Extremism in government is always a "bad thing" - worse when it comes from the Left rather than the Right.

Bling Crosby

Who's writing Andy Burnham's scripts?

Is it a grown-up?

David

Um, the NHS is a quango......

Irene

There are at least three substantial dividing lines between the parties - Thank God!

Victor Southern

The NHS is already the world's biggest quango. Is that in any way disputable?

I am beginning to think that Burnham is a berk.

logdon

"Who's writing Andy Burnham's scripts?"

Madam Eyelash.

You'll find her cards in any phone box around Westminster.

Bert

He's obviously given a holiday internship to a student union rep.

Mark

Victor Southern: "The NHS is already the world's biggest quango. Is that in any way disputable?"

Yes. The NHS is directly accountable to ministers, and NHS policy is set by the Department of Health. The Conservative proposal is to make the NHS independent of ministerial control, so that its policy is set by an independent Board appointed by the Appointments Commission, and the role of ministers is simply to set its budget and the outcomes for which it should aim.

You can agree or disagree with that proposal, but it would give the NHS substantial autonomy which it does not currently possess, and remove from ministers substantial powers which they do currently possess.

AAE

drakes drum has a point - what would a Cameron government change? The only Conservative dividing line so far seems to be on education, but now, presumably trying to pander to the BBC / Guardian, this has been strangled in the womb by the dread phrase "not for profit". Again I ask, do none of the Tory millionaires understand economics? Profits reduce costs to the consumer, they provide an enormous tax revenue, and they maintain our personal liberty. On the NHS, it is simply pathetic that Cameron does the Left's work for it - it unaccountably consumes over 100 billion a year, which alone should be a matter of daily debate, it maybe free at the point of delivery but the lack of choice in this "take it or leave it" delivery makes supplicants of us whilst the staff at every level hide behind the system, and in the end it's the luck of the draw. You may be healed, but tens of thousands die. Horribly, needlessly. The blogosphere is seething with impotent rage whilst Cameron, with the probability of real power, shows no signs of wanting to exercise it beyond protecting the State against the Individual! Not even the NHS will staunch the haemorrhage of tory supporters in the next year.

Andy Carpark

Ah yes, Andy Burham. That beacon of rectitude who asked the Parliamentary Fees Office - in wide-eyed innocence and "good faith" - whether his windfall from the Dolphin Square management company could be claimed as a tax-free "expense". "COURSE it can, Sir!" they said. "A sweetener to quit your tenancy early, aka a capital sum derived from an asset, is an expense in anybody's book a tax-free expense. Always a pleasure, Mr Burnham, Sir. Drop in any time. Ha ha!"

Remember those old Westerns with a camera placed opposite the saloon bar and the sound of a jangling piano from within? Then, in a shower of broken glass, a body comes flying through the window? That's what Burnham deserves. Nothing less.

James

1.4 million, mostly unionised, employees = lots of voters. Make sure they are thoroughly scared before the election-job done. Cynical, shameless and dangerous. NuLab in four words.

Malcolm

I do wish this self-important little prick would concentrate on the job he's paid to do. If he wants to spend all of his time making silly political attacks on the opposition then that's a party matter, to be carried out in his own time and not ours.

Some hope of course. He knows he's out of a job in May or June next year so his impact on our ailing NHS will be zero - or even worse. I suppose he has to fill his days somehow - it certainly isn't getting to grips with the many problems in the NHS - many of which were created by his predecessors anyway.

Paul L

Burnham looked well out of his depth at the Deartment of Culture, so it's no surprise he's doing a Mr Blobby at Health.

Alan Douglas

Please please bring back the good old days.

ie Patricia Hewitt.

Alan Douglas

Austin Barry

With his wonderful eyelashes and boyish charm one can see why Andy is a big hit with the chancers and prancers around the Cabinet table, but really he is quite hopeless.

Chuck Unsworth

I think it's almost certain that Burnham writes his own scripts. You can tell by the numbers of crayons he seems to break.

Chris, Birmingham

So it's dangerous to do things locally is it? Typical new labour nonsense. Do they think there is no postcode variation at the moment - we just have minimum standards for all.

The biggest error they have made is that everything is centrally targetted and controlled and employees (teachers, nurses, doctors, policemen) are not allowed to exercise their professional judgement. One question - why pay them at professional levels if they cannot use their own judgement? It make no sense, and I am not advocating a cut in pay, I think we need to let people get on with their job, rather than strangling everything with red tape.

Some will say how do you improve things if you cannot quantify them? Look at education for example, we have quantified and rather than improve we have dumbed down in order to 'improve results'. I am sure the NHS is the same where behind the scenes definitions and wording are amended so that figures look like they are improving.

Head Teacher

Chuck at 12.53: how can anyone 'seem' to break a crayon? You either break a crayon or you don't. What is it with all this nervousness about attributing actions to a person?

Now even crayon breakers have become alleged crayon breakers. On the evidence supplied I would put him down as a wanton crayon breaker, a crayon breaker par excellence who takes excessive delight not only in breaking the crayons, but then throwing the pieces around the classroom.

Simon Stephenson

AAE : 11.39am

"Profits reduce costs to the consumer"

So, as an example, I ought to be relieved that Gillette's machine-produced razor blades would cost me even more than £1 each if they were supplied under a regime in which selling price approximated to necessary cost plus a mark-up for capital investment?

Or, when nails, wholesale, are £10 per 1000, there are no arrangements under which I could less expensively buy a handful than to pay £1 for a bag containing 6 of them?

Profits reduce the cost to the consumer when they stimulate activity that leads to more efficient, cost-effective supply. On the other hand, once industries exhaust basic efficiency improvements, rent-seeking becomes the route to profits that is by far the more likely to succeed. In most of today's mature industries rent-seeking is the principal goal, so the drive for profit in these industries most assuredly does not reduce costs to the consumer. The profit motive won't work in favour of the consumer as long as crippling or neutralising the competition is seen as offering the best chance of success.

JONNY

His fondest wish is for Labour to win the Election - second only to Everton going top of the Premier.

Andy Carpark

He looks as if he is about to be canonised.

Chuck Unsworth

@ Head Teacher

I'm basing my comment on the supply of materials - rather than witnessing the actual events. It's quite conceivable that others in Burnham's 'office' (I use the term loosely, you understand) may be the perpetrators. Hence my caution - saying 'it's almost certain' that Burnham is personally involved in the breakages - if you get my drift.

Of course it could be that the Treens are responsible - but I'd want a second opinion on that.

AAE

SIMON STEPHENSON 2.37

You're right, but however much the razor blades or the nails cost, you at least know the price before you part with your money and have the choice say of buying blades made by Boots, or going to the internet for nails, or whatever, and balancing whether you want to buy a quantity far more than you'll ever need, and then perhaps sharing with family or neighbours, or paying a bigger unit cost for just what you require. What I find iniquitous is that with public services (and non-services), we pay heavily, by law, and there is no contract and in this monopoly, no choice. We get what we're given, and even to access private medical care we must get a referral from our State GP. In State control, money loses it's full economic potential to become a political weapon and I find it heartbreaking that so many hundreds of billions is wickedly wasted when it could do so much good.

Soho Politico

If this is a post criticising Burnham on message and strategy, rather than on the substance of his approach to policy (and I think it is, by the headline, and the comment that he keeps 'missing his target') then it doesn't have the right idea.

It's true that Burnham's message, in the Guardian article, won't win Labour any new voters, or score any points against the Tories. But that is not because the message - Tory localism vs Labour national standards - puts Labour on the wrong side of the issue, as you suggest. The truth is that the public is ambivalent about the respective merits of localism and centrally-directed targets. They won't localism, but they also want uniform standards. And they aren't sure where their priorities lie in the event that localism means postcode lotteries.

You suggest that people who look at the message 'Tory localism vs Labour national standards' will side with the Tories. They won't, but they won't side with Labour either. The message is useless because it isn't a contrast between two policies where only one seems right (e.g. Labour investment vs Tory cuts - that is a good point of contrast - it fails not because the contrast is not clear, but because voters don't believe it to be true). More on my site, here:

http://sohopolitico.blogspot.com/2009/08/more-on-labours-political-positioning.html

David Blackburn

Sohopolitico,

Thanks for your interesting post. I'm afraid you've missed my point completely. Burnham is trying to extract political capital from the Dan Hannan affair; he attempts to do so by caricaturing what little there is of Tory NHS policy and attemtping to create another 'dividing line', when there isn't one. The caricature, and the way he presents it, makes him miss his target - the Tory leadership. Burnham's apporach is the reason Labour failed to score a hit over the Hannan affair.