Frank Hont

It's one thing to suggest Putin will invade the Balts & A5 will be triggered (like Tony Blair, I think it's highly unlikely given Russia's struggles in E. Ukraine, & given the fact that Ukraine/Georgia, not the 2004 NATO states, have been identified as the "red lines" of Russian revisionism since ~2007). But then it's quite another thing to suggest that we should suppress domestic investment/British living standards in order to protect the UK FROM DIRECT ATTACK from a country 1500 miles away, across land and sea, that's losing 1,000 men a day & barely holding territory in poor, corrupt, dysfunctional provinces of a non-NATO country, in which swathes of the Russian Orthodox, Russian-speaking population used to vote for pro-Kremlin oligarchs. This stuff is absolutely batshit mad and shouldn't be entertained. ✅Cyber resilience ✅Energy independence ✅Food security ✅Increased industrial/manufacturing capabilities & capacities ✅Investment in dual-use civilian-military technologies + R&D: sovereign AI/space & satellite/drones etc. ❌INSANE scaremongering about "Chechen stormtroopers raping women" on the streets of Britain as an excuse to hand over money-pit contracts to big MoD primes for shitty equipment that doesn't work/is designed for imperial clout RELATEDLY: These are the same people who look at the absolute shitshow of Britain in 2026 and think it's a priority for us to be able to send £multi-billion Royal Navy destroyers to protect military bases IN FUCKING BAHRAIN. They should be ignored.

Andy Burnham: Power lies in an “outsourced state”…that’s the key…the lack of accountability in many of the agencies/ companies that are supposedly responsible for delivering services is as big a problem as wider centralisation. Even ‘Whitehall’ not in control…far from it.

Tony Blair's essay is a serious contribution. The party is drifting. Just Labour ends in the comfort zone, a place the country is sick of, and that ends in defeat. There is some common ground on policy reform: on welfare, on the North Sea, on illegal immigration, on growth before redistribution, on the planning system. But he stops short of the project he says he is looking for. The age he describes, China rising, supply chains weaponised, a more dangerous world, demands an active state. It demands an industrial strategy with the muscle to build, make and defend. Not incentives and partnership. Direction. And it demands a politics rooted in the country as it actually is. Family. Work. Place. Nation. That project has a name. It is Blue Labour. It is radical in the way he claims to want, and it answers the legitimacy problem his Radical Centre cannot. Efficacy is not legitimacy. His essay names three actors. The state, the private sector, the voluntary sector. The citizen is missing. Treated as a recipient of services, a unit of human capital, a problem on a welfare roll. Never as someone with a contribution to make. That is why his politics will always feel like something done to people, not something done with them. Homes for Ukraine was one of the best designed policies of recent years. The state set the frame, the councils did the checks, the contracts were in place. But the policy only worked because the British people did the work. Ordinary households opened their doors to strangers on a scale this country has not seen in generations. No essay about Britain's future can be written without what the British people give to it. A smaller welfare state is the right goal. But you get there by asking more of citizens and more of the state in return. Work, training, a stake in your community on one side. Decent jobs, real opportunity, services that function on the other. Not sanctions on people the system has already failed. Dependency is not dignity. Contribution is. This is where apprenticeships matter. They were once a relationship. A trade, a master, a young person, a place. The apprenticeship levy turned them into a tax credit for big companies and a way to rebadge graduate training. And we never gave them a home. University students have campuses like palaces. The young person learning a trade would be lucky to get a portakabin. It tells you what this country values. A young person learning a trade from someone who knows it is worth more than anything the corporatised version delivers. Across economic and social policy, the challenge is to rebuild the relationship and place, so that dignity can be restored. There is a challenge here for the progressive class as well. People have come second to their causes. The working class were told their concerns could wait or that they were wrong, and when they refused to wait any longer they were called the problem. A party that puts its causes before its people will keep losing them. Causes do not rebuild politics. People do. Naming the drift is not the same as ending it. A list of policies is not a story about the country and its people, and what we owe each other. That is what the country is waiting so desperately for.

Glad Andy Burnham has said he supports the law that men cannot identify into female-only services and facilities - key to women’s privacy, safety and dignity.

A thought or two for any putative Labour leaders going forward.

Duke of Devonshire's exclusive Mayfair bookshop occupied as fury grows over his decision to raise rents to Irish farmers from £500 to £5,000 His ancestors stole this land in 1753; this mad rent rise will force farmers off land that they have cultivated for hundreds of years

Sadio Mane, a Senegalese soccer star, earns approximately $10.2 million annually. He gave the world a rude awakenng after some fans were flabbergasted when they saw him carrying a cracked iPhone 11. His response was awesome: "Why would I want ten Ferraris, 20 diamond watches, and two jet planes? I starved, I worked in the fields, played brefoot, and I didn't go to school. Now I can help people. I prefer to build schools and give poor people food or clothing. I have built schools and a stadium, provide clothes, shoes, and food for people in extreme poverty. In addition, I give 70 euros per month to all people from a very poor Senegalese region in order to contribute to their family economy. I do not need to display luxury cars, luxury homes, trips, and even planes. I prefer that my people receive some of what life has given me.