I'm just curious on everyone's opinions. Do you think Labour can now get back some of the people that voted for them in the 2024 general election? I think if Labour had started off like Burnham has in 2024 Reform probably wouldn't have gained ao much popularity. That being said I think the next 3 years are going to be extremely tough and the press are going to do everything they can to make sure Burnham fails.

My train fares are 90 pounds a week, I don’t get the bus

Hi all,

I’m Caspar Chatham- a Labour member and English Literature undergrad at Durham running to be the next Youth Representative on the NEC because I want our party to work as hard for us as we work for it. I’m running to be an advocate for young members and against the divisive politics of the past- so if elected, I’ll be an independent and democratic voice for the transformational change our party and country desperately needs. Any Labour member either in a trade union or under 27 (who joins before votes open on July 27) can vote for me to do just that!

I’ll be online from 6PM tomorrow (Thursday 23rd) to answer any questions you have about my campaign- you can also hear more on my Twitter - https://x.com/cc4nec - or Instagram at the same handle (cc4nec)

Looking forward to answering all of your questions- especially the tough ones, of course…

Source: https://www.fantasyparliament.co.uk/mp/653/searches

Andy Burnham has twice pledged to end rough sleeping - when he was elected mayor of Greater Manchester and again in his first speech as prime minister.

His promise as mayor to end rough sleeping by 2020 appeared successful at first, with figures falling from 268 people sleeping on the street in 2017, to 90 in 2021. But the dip also coincided with a national effort from councils to bring rough sleepers inside during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the figure has begun to rise again alongside hikes in the cost of living.

What did Burnham do?

During his time as mayor, Burnham backed Housing First, a government-funded initiative to give former rough sleepers a permanent home before wider issues are addressed, and it was introduced in the region in 2019.

It has seen a reported 458 people cumulatively rehoused, with 269 people currently on the programme.

A year earlier, Burnham set up 'a bed every night' scheme, which offered emergency accommodation to those on the streets, and now provides more than 600 bed spaces.
He assigned teams to help rough sleepers find permanent housing, addiction support and other types of care.

It led to a drop in the number of rough sleepers in Greater Manchester from 268 in 2017, to 90 in 2021. But the figure has risen each year since then. The Manchester Mill reported that the figure had increased to 197 in 2025, a trend that follows the national picture.

The estimates are a snapshot gathered on a single night each year.

Speaking in 2025, Burnham said factors like the cost-of-living crisis and evictions from the asylum system had placed "a significant strain on services and leaves more people at risk of homelessness".

Meanwhile, Paul Dennett, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority's lead for Housing First blamed "austerity, welfare cuts, and the chronic undersupply of social housing" as major factors.

How the city compares

Professor Suzanne Fitzpatrick from Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh led a study on efforts to tackle rough sleeping in 13 city regions across the world.

She said Greater Manchester had the most "ambitious target and the most impressive result in reducing homelessness by 52%" up to 2020.
Fitzpatrick said much of the success could be attributed to Burnham's "high profile political leadership".

Her university colleague professor Beth Watts-Cobbe, also a homelessness specialist, said while rough sleeping numbers had gone up, in Greater Manchester they still "compare really favourably to the national picture".

I presume this is ok as these are Northern focus groups that he's basing policy on.

A lot of people, especially immigrants or ethnic minorities, seem to get the advice to just "leave" if a Reform government wins. But here's why I think that's not a solution.

Firstly, the far-right is on the rise across many countries.

Secondly, I'm sorry but why do ordinary innocent people have to, essentially, go into hiding?

They didn't do anything wrong. It is Reform who keeps scapegoating people who did nothing wrong.

Over the last year or two, they've scapegoated Muslims for exercising their voting rights in Gorton & Denton, threatened to ban benefits, social housing and jobs for EU nationals/foreign nationals, and whipped up hysteria against the entire Sikh community. They also threatened to fire and strip pensions from civil servants and to put camps in Green-voting areas.

Why should the response of these groups be to emigrate? What does that solve?

The UK is home to many different kinds of people, these people are not wrong to continue living in their rightful home.

I'm not sure why these groups are expected to be active assistants in their own oppression and humiliation.

So, that's why "Just leave, then" isn't an acceptable piece of advice.

Why don't far-right politicians leave the country? They're the ones creating problems and division. They who don't like the UK, and take every opportunity to trash-talk it.

They serve no serious purpose to this country, either. Posting racism on Twitter whilst taking a £90,000 salary for it and £5 million in crypto-billionaire donations doesn't count as public service, by any serious definition of the term.

12 June 2026:

More than 30 women and girls have died violently at the hands of men in Northern Ireland since 2020. There were no “protests” for Natalie McNally, Sarah Montgomery, or Ellie Flanagan; no “rage” at the brutality of their murders.

Northern Ireland does not have an immigration problem, it has a problem with violence.

The Shankill Butchers, the Kingsmill Massacre, Bloody Sunday – violence did not arrive in Northern Ireland on a boat of migrants from Europe or Africa or the Middle East, but through British colonialism that incited civil war and the partitioning of Ireland, leaving behind a legacy of sectarianism and a society scarred by conflict.

At the centre of the latest disorder is Stephen Ogilie, a man in his 40s who was violently assaulted by Hadi Alodid, losing an eye and sustaining serious knife wounds. Three people intervened including Maitiu Mag Tighearnan, who was seen beating the assailant with a hurling bat, most likely saving his life.

Northern Ireland has been home to many barbaric attacks; in 2017, Lurgan man David Lyness murdered Anita Downey, a mother of three – she suffered a wound to her neck so severe that it extended to the back of her spine. The difference? This week’s assault in North Belfast was perpetrated by a Sudanese migrant. Men did not take to the streets for Anita, because this isn’t about any victim or community – it is bold-faced racism.

Hate Amplified

A video of the attack against Ogilie quickly circulated on social media and was instantly exploited by far-right agitators in England and the United States who probably couldn’t point Belfast out on a map. They know absolutely nothing about Northern Ireland’s history of violence, care not for the lives and futures of the volatile young people they goad onto the streets to commit acts of hate for which they are arrested, or the innocent people whose homes and businesses have since been destroyed. Their objective is chaos. They want more clicks, more views, more money, more influence. Musk’s X feeds on negative content.

Seizing on any opportunity to further their own aims, Elon Musk, Tommy Robinson and Reform representatives amplified hateful discourse and spread disinformation in an attempt to cause civil unrest. “Prepare for War”, said messages circulating on social media and WhatsApp. Because nothing says solidarity like burning a bus or setting a family’s home on fire because of the colour of their skin.

The outside interference of bad faith actors led to the proliferation of AI-generated images of the victim, and escalated targeted attacks against minority communities by circulating lists of home addresses that racist thugs suspected were occupied by migrants. What unfolded was not a protest, it was a racist pogrom with men dressed in dark clothes, their faces covered going door-to-door to set alight family homes.

‘Recreational Rioting’

The displays of bigotry fuelling the riots that erupted on the streets of largely loyalist parts of Belfast are not novel – they are annual. Colloquially known as “recreational rioting” due to the large presence of youths who participate, throwing rocks and burning wheelie bins – not in protest to Government policy, but because they are egged-on and encouraged by self-appointed “community leaders”; paramilitaries and criminal gangs who exploit and control some of the Northern Ireland’s most deprived areas.

Referred to as sinkhole estates, defined by poverty, unemployment and lack of aspiration, these neighbourhoods have been a powder-keg for violent disorder for decades.

While violence has historically been directed predominantly toward Catholics, during the intense sectarian violence of August 1969 over 1500 catholic families were forced out of their homes in Belfast, the equivalent of 1 in 20. Now, with the influence of bad faith actors, far-right agitators and paramilitaries, the criteria has broadened to include migrants.