This is Northumberland Calling 24.7.26
The Playing pin the tail on angry tiger is never a good idea edition
Hello America (especially Central Ohio), this is Northumberland calling.
Andy Burnham was sworn as the new Prime Minister on Monday. To be honest, I’ve no idea how he will be but already he seems to be better at reading the political temperature than Starmer. For example, Burnham’s recognized the dangers of early release of dangerous prisoners and put a stop to it. The real problem is that we have finite prison places, a rapidly growing population, and no money to build the infrastructure which is long past over due. The system was already overcrowded. Lord Timson was big on rehabilitation, but the populace does want to see justice being served. This is particularly true for victims of male violence. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/07/23/andy-burnham-delay-early-prisoner-release-scheme-labour/ or https://archive.ph/rjQG0
Thea Sewell who helped found the Cambridge Women’s Society (for females only) went public with her ordeal to help sway matters. It is a horrific tale. In some ways it helps to explain how she endured the bullying at Cambridge when setting up the society. (gift link) https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/82da6617d2be96d8
Mahmood stays as Home Sec, John Healey , the former defence secretary moves to chancellor, Wes Streeting who is competent becomes defence. They are very much on the Blue Labour side of the party. The rest are mainly centre or soft left. Ed Miliband becomes Foreign Secretary – the first thing he had to deal with a civil service strike as they are seeking to reduce the head count. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/07/23/ed-miliband-foreign-office-civil-servant-walkout/ or https://archive.ph/im0zi
Lucy Powell is at education. She isn’t a fan of teaching children the basics like spelling, apparently. She is from Manchester, Burnham’s heartland. She is very much on the left of the party, having served in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet. She is also deputy leader. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/who-is-lucy-powell-education-secretary-andy-burnham-70q2g0k7s
Burnham’s policies are about one a day and the long pauses which engulfed Starmer are gone (thus far). This gives the impression that he is in charge. It helps that he doesn’t have a robotic voice. He has opened No 10 North which is Manchester (housed in the same building which houses the Manchester branch of GCHQ – so it will have the secure tech) https://news.sky.com/story/politics-latest-andy-burnham-keir-starmer-labour-12593360
Kemi Badenoch continues to clean house and certain long standing MPs who lost their seat like Grant Shapps have not been selected to stand. She demands to a firm commitment to ending ECHR in Britain and doing away with net zero targets from prospective MPs. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/07/23/badenoch-blocks-shapps-from-standing-for-tories/ or https://archive.ph/6tL3Z
The consequences of trying to play pin the tail on a large and angry tiger continue: The Amnesty International UK v women’s grassroot groups is on going and continuing to get coverage in the mainstream media, particularly Scotland but Andrew Doyle also placed an op-ed in the Washington Post. MBM, one of the groups defamed has done a timeline. One of the new problems for AIUK is that they claimed no external promotion of the report in a recent holding letter, but a spokesperson gave a lengthy quote to The Herald of Scotland (founded in 1783 btw) in support of the report. Oops. It is most likely that the Chair of the Trustees was unaware of it (this points to serious governance issues imho) Most of the media coverage is taking place in Scotland because of Beira’s Place (JK Rowling), FWS and MBM. https://murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/2026/07/23/amnesty-international-uk-rights-and-wrongs-part-2-a-troublesome-audit-trail/
The Times have done a good article today from Sex Matters about why Amnesty International UK should have self-reported to the Charity Commission years ago. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/amnesty-uk-should-have-reported-itself-years-ago-over-gender-rights-jhgcvmc25
A massive tax payer funded festival in Northern Ireland cancelled an event by the WRN NI citing anti-trans reasons. With a little help from JK Rowling’s fund, they and Sex Matters are concentrating their minds to rethink, shall we say?
Here:
The spell of fine weather continues, but we are increasingly getting into drought conditions. Unlike most of the country, Northumberland doesn’t have a hose pipe ban. This is because of the massive Kielder Reservoir which was built with heavy industry in mind, only for heavy industry to vanish, leaving lots of water for the region. I understand the area around Dublin remains very dry. It is supposed to rain at the weekend.
The bees in main colony are doing well. They are no longer being robbed and rapidly filling the supers.
It is spaniel glitter season which means Paddy gets his ears brushed every time he comes in. One dog, so many burrs.
My writing continues but I was pleased the Anthropic settlement has been rubber stamped. The next stage in finally getting paid for the works which Anthropic and others stole. My fingers remain firmly crossed for more settlements of this nature. Because of the nature of book piracy etc, the romance genre is one of the main genres which was used to train AI.
I have no plans to put a paywall on. If you want to buy one of my books to reward me, fabulous. I believe they are good escapist reads, historical romance set in a wide variety of eras such as Rome, Viking and Regency. ‘Simply enchanting’ according to Romance Readers’ Reviews about A Christmas Wedding Wager. ‘Everybody loves Styles’ Vikings’ said the Romantic Times.
Please subscribe if you like what I write. I look forward to seeing you in the comments.
And because I have just taken time to read it. There was a really good interview with Lord Toby Young who set up the Free Speech Union. I had not realised that his father was a Labour peer and wrote the 1945 Labour manifesto. Toby Young has slightly different politics.
But the FSU is his baby and it has done really great work. (gift article) https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/dda660def589773a
Hello Northumberland! Good to see You again.
I'm glad Burnham halted the release of the prisoners.
Kemi is great.
Amnesty is still awful.
I'm glad to hear You have good weather. We do here too. Glad to hear the bees are doing so well.
Paddy looks great, as always.
I'm glad to hear about the Anthropic settlement. And, as always, TY Michelle.