What San Vito said. It’s a senior administrative role in cabinet, and it’s someone the PM can use to push their pet policy past the others.
The title dates back to the days when the Palatinate of Lancaster (now just another county) was sort of separate from the rest of England.
Yeah, exactly what @SanVito said.
It’s origins lie in the fact that the Duchy of Lancaster is a very large collection of land-holdings (and, now, other assets) which is held personally by the royal family. (This goes back to Henry IV). Such assets need managing, hence the Chancellor post in government. In fact, the actual management is done by a deputy, which leaves an undefined ministerial post floating about.
In the past, this has indeed been a sinecure or even a means of demoting people. From c.1997 on, it was recognised that because the job description is vague, it becomes a “whatever the PM wants done” role, which is a great place to put a loyal competent type to supervise important projects that PM’s value but can’t make time for.*
*On which note, ex PM Rishi Sunak wrote an interesting piece about being PM in the Times, the excerpts from whcih that I’ve seen included the gem that about a third of your time as PM is taken up by an unavoidable combination of ceremonial duties and national security affairs you can never talk about, plus a decent chunk spending time with your own MPs (part of Starmer’s downfall was that he was disinclined to meet MPs, and had 400 so couldn’t practically do so anyway.). So even if there’s a project your passionate about and is vital to your programme of government, you won’t get to involve yourself with it anyhow. Hence the need for a CDL, Minister without Portfolio.
Though our system doesn’t include an official title for people like Miller, and him holding as much power as he does is seen as something of an aberration.
Looking through Substack for Burnham takes…doesn’t seem like anyone likes this guy!
I’m seeing a lot of right-wing pearl clutchers moaning about how he’ll increase welfare spending, impose rent controls, pass confiscatory taxes on the rich, protect the environment, treat immigrants decently, and other unambiguously good things. But nobody on the Left who actually does want these things seems to believe for a second that Burnham also wants them. Everyone on both sides seems to agree that he is a careerist rather than a man of principle. Sounds like he’s stepping into a challenging position.
No idea if this is true, but I saw a rumor that Burnham is planning to turn a wing of Buckingham Palace into a supermarket, because there are no affordable food stores in that area for working people. Don’t know if it’s actually a good or practical idea, but I love the symbolism.
A very quick look shows that there are multiple supermarkets, from Waitrose to Tesco within a mile, also the palace isn’t owned by the government, it’s part of the crown estates, so he wouldn’t have the power to do that anyway. Absolute twaddle I’m afraid.
Also, the number of “working people” living within a reasonable distance of Buckingham Palace is likely to be very, very, very small. Belgravia, Knightsbridge, Mayfair, Westminster - not known for their affordable housing. Maybe Pimlico but at that point you’re passing several other supermarkets.
This is clearly a joke.
Following yesterday’s announcement of 0% VAT on electricity ( a cut from 5%, worth £45 a year to the median household), another small but indicative policy announcement:
Buses in England to have fares capped at £2.
Bus usage fell in Covid and has not fully recovered. Obviously there are benefits in terms of the environment to have people using public transport rather than cars, and for those without cars this will reduce their cost of living somewhat. But it’s not a huge cost and therefore not a huge impact - in particular, the main barrier to people taking buses is usually that the service doesn’t exist, or is so slow and sparse that it might as well not. Subsidising companies to keep fares low doesn’t seem like it will address this problem.
The other not-quite-announcement-but-strong-hint is that having said he will look at the issue because he understands how it affects people, Burnham probably won’t be raising the tax-free personal allowance, which has been frozen in real terms for several years, thus increasing the tax take and catching more low income households in the tax system. There are unfairnesses to this which you could address in a tax neutral fashion by raising the threshold and the tax rate together, but that’ won’t happen because tax raises get headlines and fiscal drag doesn’t.
I hear King Charles is partial to the £3.85 Tesco Meal deal. Coronation Chicken sandwich, bottle of Highland Spring, packet of King Prawn McCoys.
That’s an 80% discount in some places.
Stupid policy under the Tories, should have been scrapped, (rather than upped to £3) under Labour. Bringing it back its just a sample of how unaffordable a Burnham goverment is going to be.
Having lived in an area in England where the buses used to be relatively frequent but ridiculously priced, I think it would potentially locally be a big deal, if nationally it doesn’t seem so. I grew up in a village next to a county boundary, and as the buses were technically run by a county subsidiary if you went into the next county, you effectively had to pay a fare for both.
Last time I remember catching it, you could get a £7 county-wide day pass which could get you over 100 miles in one direction, or it was £8.50 return to get 8 miles in the other direction to the first town over the border, which also had the nearest supermarket, train station and the nearest college.
The buses only took a few more minutes than driving and they were hourly through the day, every 30 minutes at peak, but we used them for emergencies only- just when the car was out of order because they were so expensive. I don’t think any teenagers from our village used the buses to get to college.
According to my parents at least, the bus use in the village shot up when they dropped the fare for £2 temporarily. Previously it was only people who qualified for a free bus pass using them.
That’s without getting to the places where you need to get multiple tickets with multiple bus companies…
It’s going to cost £500 million, which is absolute peanuts in government terms. And it’s funded by diverting money from net zero, which is something you specifically don’t want money being spent on!
Fair enough!
One of Burnham’s big successes in Manchester was taking over bus franchising precisely to deal with this problem, introducing capped fares across all franchised routes, it’s one of the reasons he was a popular mayor.
A little drip here, a little drip there and suddenly the house is flooded.
A little cut here, a little cut there, and suddenly you’ve bled to death.
Yeah, but sMaLl BoAtS!
Interestingly, I read this morning that after a summer of flat seas, small boat crossings are at their lowest for years. I’m sure that’ll result in positive attitudes towards the government.
There are certain news media that are bound to trumpet that piece of news, of course /s
@gyrate makes a good point, but also: it’s diverted funds from additional spending, spending on area you think is overfunded, it is not an additional drip.
And so we’re on the same page, is your view of the UK state at this point in time that it is overfunding services?
Overfunding NHS, welfare, pensioners, immigrants, net zero, Government debt*, banana schemes like this bus fare cap.
Underfunding Defence and nuclear power.
Other things may be over or underfunded.
*added in after Gyrate’s reply
None of these things are remotely overfunded, and most of them are desperately underfunded.