Burnham's Insult

John Sydenham

Our ‘Prime Minister to be’ has just delivered the biggest insult in British political history. His recent speech would have been satire anywhere else and at any time in the past. He stood there and said that he would give us ‘growth’ which would pay for: good incomes, housing, caring local government, state owned public services etc. with scarcely a word about how we would pay for it. I felt insulted.

Any clown could say these things but even clowns would not be so arrogant as to expect that the People will just believe them like sheep. Burnham displayed utter contempt for the electorate.

Not a single mainstream media outlet reported that Burnham’s ‘Manchester Miracle’ was paid for by central government as regeneration funds. It was financed by you and me. Burnham is getting away with a gigantic lie. (See Integrated Settlement for Manchester (£311m in 2025-26), Manchester Transport (‘his’ Buses) (£1bn), National Wealth Fund (£500m in March). The annual funding of Manchester has recently been at a similar level to the amount spent on Reconstruction of Manchester after the 1996 IRA attack (£411m). Imagine what your town would look like if the government gave it billions over the past ten years instead of transferring your taxes to Manchester. Any clown could be a ‘master of growth’ if handed billions by you and me.

Burnham’s devolution is a con. Every city in the country cannot be given billions of taxpayer money from elsewhere.

Manchester is being praised to the heavens for ‘growth’ but all of the elevation in growth compared with elsewhere is a consequence of massive spending by you and me. Why are the mainstream media cancelling the truth?

The mainstream media are building up this fake messiah in the hope that he will defeat Reform. They hate Reform because it spells an end to cheap foreign labour and an end to crawling back to the EU on behalf of international companies and banks. It’s always about the money.

Burnham demonstrates the huge problem that we have with our Political Class: they are overgrown children. Adults leave education and get a job in industry or commerce. They learn about the working life of adults and how business works. In contrast, overgrown children leave university, become political activists and join the Political Class or work in further education. They then tell us what we want but have no idea how to achieve it.

If we want to be prosperous we need only look at success stories like China or the USA. China puts China first. The key indicator used by China, and the current US government, is the Balance of Payments, especially the Balance of Trade. The international companies and banks that control our Political Class do not want us looking at these indicators. Their apparatchiks and indoctrinated followers will jump on anyone who mentions the Trade Deficit.

A continuing, huge Balance of Trade and Balance of Payments deficit indicates the slow hemorrhage of business strength from a country. The deficit means that British businesses are forced to close and we have to pay for the deficit by selling assets. The EU is the prime source of the deficit (£90 billion in 2025). The deficit with the EU swallowed the entire benefit to the UK accounts of the UK financial services and banking sector.

Balance of Trade in Goods and Services with EU (Series l86i):

Any Prime Minister who fails to begin and end any discussion of the economy without mentioning the Balance of Payments is either an idiot or in hock to big, multinational business or China. We will not have growth and we will not even be able to defend ourselves without home grown industry.

(PS: The Trade Deficit of £90bn pa. includes financial services sales to the EU. It is fortunate that there is a strong financial services trade with the USA etc. Although profitable, financial services were only about 15% of UK exports in 2025 and are no substitute for a strategic economy).