Politics

What a difference a year makes. Last August, Michael Dugher and Andy Burnham were thick as thieves with Dugher — a former Brown spinner — even running Burnham’s failed leadership campaign. Alas now that Jeremy Corbyn is leader their friendship has taken a turn for the worse. While Dugher was sacked as shadow Culture Secretary in January, Burnham has clung on as shadow Home Secretary — even choosing to remain when the majority of the shadow cabinet resigned in protest of the leader. While sceptics suggested this was because he was worried about losing Corbynista votes in his bid to be the Mayor of Greater Manchester, today any such bet paid off with Burnham announced as Labour’s

Andy Burnham has won the race to be named as Labour’s candidate in the Manchester Mayoral race. The shadow home secretary’s victory was certainly convincing – he won 50 per cent of the vote amongst Labour members; interim mayor Tony Lloyd got 28 per cent, whilst former minister Ivan Lewis won 19 per cent. So what now? Burnham had made himself something of a laughing stock recently with his flip-flopping about quitting the shadow cabinet. He drew derision for staying loyal to Corbyn, so at least after today he appears to have a bonafide reason at last for leaving the shadow cabinet. Despite the infancy of his mayoral campaign, Burnham is already

Britain’s trade deficit – the difference between what we import and export – widened in the run-up to Brexit. Figures out today show that we imported £5.1bn more goods than we exported to the rest of the world. That gap widened by nearly £1bn between May and June, according to the ONS, in a picture which the Guardian have said is pretty ‘ugly’. But there is a flip side. Firstly, these figures don’t reflect anything about the referendum – they were compiled in the build-up to the June vote, so they tell us little about the impact of Brexit. Secondly, it’s worth mentioning that whilst the deficit has, indeed, got bigger,

We were warned during the referendum run-up that Brexit could be a disaster for tourism. Much of the Project Fear medicine focused on what it might mean for British tourists heading overseas; the answer could be largely summarised as all doom and gloom. Abta, for instance, warned that ‘a Brexit could…affect the flow of trade and travel’. In short, the message was clear: Brexit was bad news for the travel industry. But what we heard less about was how the referendum might affect the numbers actually heading to Britain. Now, a month on from the June 23rd vote, we have the answer:  British tourism is booming. In July, bookings for flights landing in

Isabel Hardman and Lara Prendergast discuss what’s next for Labour: Could Labour hold its autumn conference without a confirmed leader? The party’s QC is to appeal this morning’s High Court decision that it cannot have a six month freeze date for members voting in the leadership contest, and this could delay the contest between Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith. Five new Labour members won their case against the party’s application of a six month freeze on eligibility to vote. If the election is delayed, and Labour has no leader in the autumn, which is when political parties and leaders traditionally fire up their grassroots and show how strong their authority

In 1960, my father failed the eleven-plus. He was lucky: his parents could afford to send him to a private school. In 1968 he went up to Cambridge, in 2000 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and last year he retired as head of Theoretical Physics at Oxford. Although it was seldom recognised as a condition in the 1960s, my father’s late academic development and early difficulties with basic literacy skills are characteristic of dyslexia. Dyslexia runs in families,  and I very much doubt that I, a card-carrying dyslexic, would have passed the eleven-plus either. While I may never reach my father’s academic heights, after an inauspicious