The Poolie Bunker

"I'm not a quitter" said the man who's just quit.
Lasted almost a year longer than I expected though, he was always going to quickly outlive his usefulness as the face to make Labour electable again.

Will move on to some lucrative job and a nice pension!

The Nation mourns…

Should have done the decent thing and called a GE..Good riddance!!

What like he demanded the Tory's do that under the same circumstances? He'd have to be a man of principles to do that.

The worrying thing is he seems to think he has gone a good job/

If he thinks he has done a good job, why is he resigning!

Glad to see the back of that gormless egotist.

Well Burnham needs to take Trumps advice.
Sort immigration n energy bills out.
Then cut our taxes.

Prioritise oaps before lazy fuckas.
Basic simple fix

But probably the same shit will carry on.

Immigration is being sorted, Net migration to the UK has dropped to 171,000 for the year ending December 2025. This represents a nearly 50% decrease year-on-year and an 82% drop from its historic peak of 944,000 in early 2023. This brings net migration to its lowest level since 2012, excluding the Covid-19 pandemic period.
Energy Bills, the only way they can ‘sort them out’ is by cutting VAT meaning other taxes have to be raised to fill the gap.
Yes there are lazy sods, there has been from the year dot, probably 5/6 generations of them, they are institutionalised, the first thing that needs to be sorted is make employers pay decent wages whereas employees don’t need there salaries topped up by benefits.
OAPs are the least of any governments concerns, we are all living too long therefore successive governments keep raising the retirement age maybe hoping we might pass away before reaching it.

Record numbers of businesses closing down after rises in NI and NMW and the answer is to put wages up? Where's the money coming from, wages go up as profit and productivity do and when pay rises are affordable. Small and medium businesses need support not more costs.
The immigration issue isn't simply numbers, it's what do they bring, will they integrate or colonise, how much are they costing, what are their backgrounds and beliefs, etc etc
Energy bills could be cut by nationalising the energy suppliers, by removing the green tariffs, forcing the suppliers to apply a reasonable service charge, binning net zero, thinking outside the box. Ask the question if energy prices are set by the global markets why are UK consumer prices the highest in the world?
Nearly 1million under 22s not working, in education, or training, needs sorting, they're the future tax payers.
Lazy sods need weeding out and made to work or live on food and clothing vouchers, the answer isn't to accept them because they've always existed.
Get after the big companies and individuals avoiding paying their fair share of taxes, review of Council Tax is long overdue, why should I living in a former Durham pit village be paying more than those in a mansion in London and other big cities.

Saw a tweet that neatly sums it up



I’ll give Burnham 6 months before the misinformation campaign starts on him to try and get him removed, the same gullible morons start repeating the lies, and Musk and the rest of the backers trying to force their paid shill, Farage, onto us, or trying to trigger civil unrest, will get their way again.

"Far right leader " ??....the author must be living in the past..What's the odds he's all masked up and dressed in black this weekend?

Disagree on your full reply.
Hartlepool is now riddled with immigrants so that ain't going down as well as other parts of our country.

Energy bills. Just let the companys make less profit and they still will be super rich.

Most employers are doing there best.
Benefits need to be slashed to make the gap higher.

I don't believe the myth that oaps are living longer long covid has seen to that.

Hartlepudlians are probably the most taxed % workers in the country due to our extortionate council tax which will be going up the full 4.9% for the foreseeable future.

Best way to reduce taxes is to slash benefits.
In the 80s benefits meant you did well to eat never mind live lavish lifestyles.

He won’t need 6 months…he was on the periphery of those posts he held under Blair and Brown and never lasted long at any of them.
He got elected because Starmer was so bad..end of.
This so called ’Government ’ has been a disaster…all self inflicted and effortlessly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory big time.

Catch 22 situation, if wages don’t up how can bills be paid or is it back to topping up with benefits ?

Who wouldn’t like to see all the utilities nationalised, taking over all supply, networks (grids), generation (wind, solar, nuclear), and North Sea oil and gas assets could result in a total cost ranging from £90 billion (book value) to £196 billion (market value, per industry estimates). How is that going to be funded ?

Get after the big companies and individuals avoiding paying their fair share of taxes, they will just employ high end accountants to avoid this and possibly move their assets to country where they won’t pay tax.

Lazy sods, you can take a horse to water but can’t make it drink it, if you had a company and the DWP sent you a few long term unemployed staff, would you welcome them with open arms ?

Youth unemployment, scrap the non degrees, make companies take on apprentices based on their size and turnover.

I agree with that Jamie.
The trouble with Labour and even by the Tory’s was to try and give an equal standard of living to those not working…confounded by the lack of any control on it’s distribution and availability.

But, because some issues have become norms doesn't mean they can't be changed. Bold collaborative thinking with proper impact assessments is what's needed. Fecking sick of hearing about how every politician says they'll do the best for the country but then go on to do what's the best for their party.
We're obviously not in an open war, but our nation is at huge risk to the economy, standards of living, culture, jobs, infrastructure collapse, etc etc and party politics is behind much of it.
We quite obviously need to get the younger generation into jobs, but how do you force already struggling businesses into taking on expensive apprentices? Small and Medium businesses are the lifeblood of the economy and need support not more costs. Where's the incentive to build a business if the government take nearly half when you die?

so starmer has gone. feels a big so what moment as labour are still running the show and just cannot see burnham being the savior of us all.

Labour are so weak they have 403 MP's (elected with 411) and not one of them has the bottle or belief to put their name forward to lead the party, it's pathetic that they've had to fast track a guy through who hasn't been involved for over a decade in the workings who nobody knows what he really stands for.

the only thing in his favour is most people have heard of his name. out of the 403 the ones who have made a name for themselves are the last one most would want to led the party and be out PM. at least the blair government gave us brown and other possible alternatives and the present lot were supposed to be the adults in charge.

Talk of c tax getting replaced with Land Value Tax.
Which would mean a substantial reducement in cost for the majority of Hartlepudlians and higher for Londeners.

Obviously would most probably bring in more money overall.

Bring it on.
Let the cockneys subsidise us for a change.
They had it cushty for years at our expense.

A glimmer of hope or more financial pain for us lot.

Like a said earlier.
You should be temporarily living of the bones of your arse when unemployed while trying to find employment.

Thats how it was in the 80s.
Ya dident work ya lived a brutal painful existence.
Not like today.

Only time I experienced it in the mid 80’s and it was definitely an incentive to get a job.

the majority of people just feel its odd when they are not working and cannot find some sort of job quick enough. ok we cannot wait until finishing time and our days off, but at least it gives you something else to talk about with your mates.

Difference is the majority of people have a work ethic, a small minority don’t and are prepared to live of benefits.

Only a really stupid government would assume that giving people who don't work as much as (in some cases more) money than those who do graft would lead to a utopian society.

Trouble is it’s becoming more popular with the young and their ‘stressful existence’ to opt out and pick up a meal ticket.

but something must have caused this to happen. there must have been a lot like me who heard there old man moaning about work nightly but could not wait to join him. lets face it we were not exactly hiring security guards to take us home with out pay packets in our early days. got a feeling things will not improve as now any heat is seen as a reason to stay in bed now.

The difference is not sure about anyone else, when left school there was an abundance of jobs no matter what your level of education was. There isn’t anymore due to the deindustrialisation of the U.K, modern manufacturing is not labour intensive, stuff is being built by robots like cars etc. Chemical plants can be operated from the control room, even some oil and gas platforms are remotely controlled. I worked on a few to convert them to be remote controlled from either onshore or an adjacent platform.