No Answer Andy’s Circus, Brexit Is Back, the Migrant Deal Is Dead and Apparently Your Pint Is Far Right.
Welcome back, dear readers, to another riotous week beneath Westminster’s Big Top of Blunders, where No Answer Andy has returned from Labour conference armed with a new programme for Britain, reopen Brexit, rewrite the pension settlement, contemplate greater state control of water, change the voting system and somehow convince everybody that this represents a period of reassuring stability.
Yes, dear readers, the circus has expanded. We no longer merely have clowns, jugglers and contortionists. We now have a full political freak show, complete with disappearing border policies, exploding borrowing costs, pension gymnastics, prisoners walking through the exit, taxpayers heading for departures and, perhaps most magnificently of all, a row in which warm ale, country pubs and black Labradors somehow found themselves wandering into the culture wars.
No Answer Andy’s Labour conference was supposed to provide direction. It certainly provided that. Unfortunately, several of the arrows appear to point backwards.
Burnham used his conference speech to reopen the argument about Britain’s relationship with the European Union, declaring that Brexit had done “more harm than good”. He subsequently said Britain’s future options could range from staying as we are, to considering a customs union or single market relationship, or even “going all the way”. To be clear, Labour’s policy for this Parliament still rules out rejoining the EU, the single market or customs union. But Burnham has previously said he would like Britain to rejoin during his lifetime, and the question is plainly back in the political ring.
So there we have the latest Westminster balloon animal. It is labelled RESPECTING THE REFERENDUM, but if you look at it from the other side it bears an uncanny resemblance to REOPENING THE WHOLE THING.
The timing is particularly exquisite because Labour’s much trumpeted “one in, one out” migrant agreement with France has just performed its own disappearing act. France declined to continue the bilateral scheme beyond October 1, meaning no new cases are being accepted. Around 1,500 people were ultimately returned to France, while the last detailed official figures showed 1,087 returns and 1,117 people coming to Britain through the reciprocal legal route by the end of June. During that same period, 27,920 people crossed the Channel in small boats.
For a scheme costing around £56,000 for every migrant returned, this was less “one in, one out” and more “money out, policy out, back to the drawing board”.
Roll up, roll up. See the amazing vanishing deterrent.
Then came the pension contortionists. Burnham announced that the existing triple lock would survive until 2030, after which, if Labour wins the next election, the earnings component would disappear and the state pension would instead rise by inflation or 2.5 per cent, whichever is higher. Burnham says savings would help fund his proposed National Care Service. Even Unite general secretary Sharon Graham called the plan “morally wrong”, while the Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned that the sums involved would be nowhere near enough to fund universal social care on their own.
And therein lies the problem with Westminster’s favourite trick. Promise something enormous, discover enormous things require enormous amounts of money, then send the Treasury clowns into the audience shaking collection buckets.
Pensioners, apparently, please check under your seats.
The economic ring is hardly providing much reassurance. Long term government borrowing costs pushed beyond 6 per cent this week, piling further pressure on the public finances. Meanwhile, a record 69,300 taxpayers submitted P85 departure forms to HMRC in 2025/26, according to figures obtained through Freedom of Information. That does not mean 69,300 people have permanently emigrated, P85 forms are not a precise measure of permanent departure, but the number has nevertheless intensified concern about Britain’s ability to retain taxpayers, entrepreneurs and investors.
The Treasury circus therefore finds itself attempting a fascinating experiment, spending more, borrowing expensively, contemplating new commitments and hoping the people expected to pay for them remain conveniently seated in the tent.
Some, apparently, are already looking for the exit.
Motorists are not having much fun either. Average diesel reached 199.18p a litre this week, according to the RAC, meaning a typical family diesel car costs almost £110 to fill. The principal cause is turmoil in international energy markets and disruption to global supplies, rather than a lever Downing Street can simply pull. But it is a painful reminder of Britain’s exposure to imported energy while the political argument over future North Sea production continues.
Then there are the prisons. Hundreds of offenders have begun leaving custody earlier under Labour’s new sentencing arrangements, another attempt to deal with the chronic pressure on prison capacity. There are serious practical arguments about overcrowding and rehabilitation, but the public can be forgiven for finding the choreography peculiar. When prisons are full, the solution increasingly appears to be opening the doors sooner. At this rate the Ministry of Justice will install a revolving door and charge admission.
Housing brings yet another expansion of the state into the ring, with councils receiving stronger powers over long term empty properties. There is a legitimate public interest in bringing genuinely abandoned homes back into use, particularly during a housing shortage. But granting the state greater control over privately owned property inevitably raises questions about where intervention ends and property rights begin. This is precisely the sort of policy that requires careful safeguards rather than another clown firing the word FAIRNESS from a confetti cannon.
And Labour’s ideological travelling circus is apparently considering another old favourite, state ownership of water. Environment Secretary Angela Eagle has said “all options” remain available as the Government prepares reforms, although nationalisation was not in Labour’s 2024 manifesto and no decision to nationalise the industry has been announced.
The water companies unquestionably have serious problems. But nationalisation is not a magic wand. The pipes do not repair themselves because the logo on the letterhead changes. Somebody still has to provide the billions of pounds required for infrastructure, and if private capital does not, taxpayers ultimately enter the ring.
Then, just when you thought Week Eleven could not become any more gloriously absurd, along came warm ale and black Labradors.
A Labour minister’s remarks about an idealised vision of Britain involving country pubs, warm beer and black Labradors prompted a furious row after that imagery was associated with a far right conception of Britishness. Whatever the intended intellectual argument, politically it was the sort of sentence that arrives at Conservative Post gift wrapped with a bow.
A country pub. A pint. A Labrador.
Apparently even the dog has been dragged into the culture war.
One imagines the poor creature sitting beside the fireplace wondering how it went from retrieving pheasants to being questioned about its political affiliations.
There are graver matters too. Allegations reported by German prosecutors concerning a man said to have served as a bodyguard for Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who later received asylum and British citizenship before allegedly becoming involved in a terrorist plot, raise profoundly serious questions about vetting and national security. Those allegations must be treated as allegations unless and until established in court, but the case deserves proper scrutiny rather than political theatre.
And that is Week Eleven beneath the Big Top.
The French migrant deal has disappeared. Brexit is back in the ring. The pension triple lock is heading for reconstruction. Borrowing costs have broken 6 per cent. Diesel is flirting with £2 a litre. Thousands more taxpayers are filing departure forms. Prisoners are leaving early. Water nationalisation is being discussed. Councils are receiving greater powers over empty homes. Veterans are embroiled in the politics of the EU reset. And somewhere in Whitehall a black Labrador is presumably consulting lawyers.
No Answer Andy remains in the centre ring, naturally, insisting there is a plan.
Around him the Brexit contortionists are bending towards Brussels, the Treasury jugglers are trying not to drop the national finances, the immigration magician is wondering where his French assistant went, and the balloon modeller is furiously twisting another enormous creation labelled CHANGE.
Unfortunately, after eleven weeks of the new circus, Britain may be beginning to recognise the shape.
It looks remarkably like another bill.
READ ALL ABOUT IT: Links to this week’s top Labour circus acts below:
