Showing His Hand

(Read on, or view here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfxrRgbVYO_E)

At home and abroad, our new Prime Minister is showing us how he plans to translate his soothing words into hard facts. In each case there’ve been howls of outrage from the losers, and whoops of joy from the winners. Either way, it’s clear that Andy Burnham has no intention of just relying on vibes.

For newbies in Number Ten, landing the top job is a shock to the system that most admit they really didn’t see coming.

All very well banging on about how you’re going to do things differently. When it comes to the crunch the sheer enormity of the task is beyond daunting.

It boils down to an old and oft-quoted line from across The Pond: ‘You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.’ Only when it comes to it what looked a novella instantly turns into a whole shelf of three-volume novels.

Burnham did at least have some inkling of this.

His experience, running government departments in the Blair/ Brown years followed by his miniature Downing Street operation in Manchester, adds up to a handy apprenticeship for the real thing.

A couple of things in the last few days seem to bear this out.

His new tax on people taking their hols in Britain got the hospitality industry up in arms. No surprise there.

But their claim that it’ll drive people abroad falls a bit flat when they have to admit that folk are already used to paying that sort of top-up just about everywhere else in Europe.

Also, the plan to let local mayors set the new tourist tax as high as they like doesn’t seem quite so scary now that they’ve nearly all promised not to push it beyond five per cent. Ok a cost, but not a huge one for each family.

But you add them all up and it does make for the biggest transfer of revenue-raising powers to local leaders in decades. Which proves that when Burnham said he wanted to move power away from Whitehall he meant it.

Then there’s his squaring up to the Israeli government over violence suffered by Palestinian people at the hands of Jewish settlers in disputed territory on the west bank of the river Jordan.

Unlike what Keir Starmer would almost certainly have done, Burnham delegated the job of announcing a ban on trading with these guys to his Foreign Secretary.

Ed Miliband, who is himself Jewish, accused the settlers of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian families they’re driving from their homes.

Though we don’t buy much produce from there anyway it’s still the most significant foreign policy announcement since Burnham took over. Symbolism. Impossible to miss.

Hence the fury in Jerusalem shared over here by the Chief Rabbi, alongside lots of tut tutting by the Tories.

To which Miliband retorted Britain had ‘unshakeable bonds’ with the Israeli people, but felt free to call out those in power there. A tone not heard before by our government.

Burnham later echoed his Foreign Secretary’s line, stressing that Palestine must have as much right to exist as Israel.

‘Words from any politician about a two-state solution,’ he added, ‘will be only words if it’s not backed with action.’

This action, by the way, was taken in tandem with France, Canada and no fewer than nine other countries.

And the initial outcry has since been countered by a host of prominent British rabbis, a former Israeli PM and an ex-head of the country’s armed forces. All of which implies Burnham called this one right.

Even fears that Trump might get in a snit about it, given his chumminess with the present Israeli PM, haven’t come to anything, so far at least.

Could be the Donald’s got distracted by his own plummeting approval rating, and understandable jitters about what that could mean for the looming mid-term elections.

If his side loses control of either the Senate or the House of Representatives this could spell real problems both for him and his White House consiglieres.

Which might explain the extraordinary lengths he’s been going to to shore up his defences. Notably his promise to shell out five thousand dollars to every adult American if they get his lot over the line.

The trillion-dollar-plus so-called Trump Dividend could be described as a naked, shameless and downright disgusting bribe.

Here the House of Cards’ Francis Urquhart springs to mind: ‘You might very well think that; I couldn’t possibly comment.’

Ditto that to those unkind souls who think there might be something sniffy about the way Nigel Farage finds his and Reform’s money.

The Metropolitan Police couldn’t possibly comment either on developments in its new criminal investigation into whether laws over foreign funding have been broken.

Beyond, that is, announcing that the probe following this month’s Channel 4 sting operation suggesting something untoward will be folded into the one already underway into a separate revenue source.

As it happens, the first YouGov poll following Reform’s conference that got blown to bits by the TV exposé suggested no change in its rating.

But these things can be slow-burn. Worth bearing in mind that it wasn’t the Watergate break-in that did for President Nixon all those years ago but the cover-up that came afterwards.

One thing, however, that looks set to go no further in the foreseeable future is any change in the law regarding assisted dying.

Though MPs voted in favour of the idea when it was last mooted, only to be thwarted by a determined handful of peers, this time they voted against it.

Meaning what could have been an epoch-making piece of legislation, up there with the legalisation of abortion back in the l960s, is no longer a threat. Or a promise. The division of emotions is that brutal.

But while there’s no obvious way forward, it’s worth remembering that many, many other countries besides Switzerland do allow it. So, as the old adage goes, you never say never in politics.

Or anywhere else, for that matter.

Take the case of Lisa Wilson from Spruce Pine in North Carolina, and her dog Eddie, who she adopted as a puppy eleven years ago.

He was a huge comfort when she and her husband separated, but the break-up meant she’d have to sell her house and find somewhere to rent.

Problem was she couldn’t find anywhere she could afford that allowed dogs, so she had to take the poor pooch back to the rescue centre where she’d found him in the first place.

Best she could do was just take him for walks. But when the centre’s director spotted her crying every time she brought him back she posted details of her plight on their Facebook page.

The response was immediate and overwhelming. Leads on animal-friendly housing flooded in, alongside donations to help with the move.

‘All I wanted was my baby back,’ Lisa said, fighting back more tears. ‘I didn’t expect any of this … I don’t know how to say thank you. It’s amazing.’

The more so as she’s now well on the way to moving into a new home, with Eddie safely by her side. How’s that for a happy ending?