The economic kick in the teeth from this government is being felt again locally. Morrisons announced last week that due to cost burdens placed on their business, through increased employment taxes by Rachel Reeves, they are closing 100 stores across the country.
Although the list of axed stores has not been released, we already know that staff in McColls in Bewdley have been served their redundancy notice. That takes away the post office, leaving Bewdley with no banks and no post offices. Well done Rachel Reeves.
Meanwhile, in Franche, the CoOp has been sold to Lidl, who is not allowing the renewal of the post office franchise in the branch to continue. The post office may move elsewhere, but we are not sure yet.
Of course, you would expect me to bemoan this utterly dismal Labour government – I’m a Conservative MP. But this is what Labour MPs are saying too, utterly fed up with their out-of-depth chancellor and dismal prime minister’s performance. Last week, we even saw the spectacle of Labour cabinet ministers, appointed by Keir Starmer, cheering Andy Burnham’s campaign launch to be the next MP for Makerfield. This campaign, remember, serves no purpose other than to enable Andy Burnham to kick out Keir Starmer and become prime minister once he is an MP. Extraordinary.
Now the by-election campaign is under way, there has been a lot of hyperbole about its significance. It truly is a seismic election. And, of course, commentators are speculating about how good Burnham will be as prime minister.
Burnham has been, by all accounts, a good metro mayor. But we’ve seen this before. Boris Johnson was an excellent mayor of London. But being a mayor is very different from being PM.
The mayoral role is similar to that of a presidential one. They are elected to that post and appoint everyone around them from a very wide pool. But a prime minister is not the same. The largest political party in parliament chooses their leader, and he or she becomes the prime minister. They have to manage their backbenchers, appoint ministers from among their MPs, and are vulnerable.
Burnham has a lot of talents. But he has been out of Westminster for a decade. He has developed skills that are at odds with those needed for parliamentary leadership. And he has no relationship with the majority of MPs who will have to fall in line behind him. We are not through the woods yet.
