Afternoon music
Talking point
Makerfield by-election
Well, Burnham won. Not unexpected. The msm is going mad with this supposed great turning-point etc. Rather overblown, as is their contention that all Labour (or both of the main System parties) needed to do was to change horses, and both Reform and Restore would be left behind.
Not quite. At the 2024 General Election, Labour scored 45.2% at Makerfield, and Reform UK scored 31.8%. At the 2026 by-election, the Labour vote was 54.8%, so higher but not stunningly so, and the Reform vote was 34.5%, also higher than in 2024, despite the challenge from Restore Britain (6.8%) which did not exist in 2024.
While Reform and Restore together scored well below Labour’s vote, that combined vote still added up to 41.3%; quite respectable. Over 41% of the total of eligible voters did not vote at all, a sign that many are either apathetic or more radical than Reform and Restore.
Prior to the vote, enemy of the people Lisa Nandy made some foolish comment that “about 6% or 7%” of the Makerfield electorate were “racists” who would vote for any anti-immigration party. 6% or 7%. Now see the combined Reform/Restore vote— over 41%.
I think that several factors contributed to Burnham’s win. The split Reform/Restore was one. True, the two parties still scored a total below that of Burnham-Labour, but that might not have been the case had only one party stood.
Then there is the hullabaloo and msm reportage about how Burnham would unseat the hated Starmer-stein, and about Burnham’s supposed more radical and/or active ideas to improve life in the North of England. Unconvincing to me, but apparently not to many Northern English voters.
The other interesting parts of the by-election result were the poor showings of the Conservatives and LibDems.
The Conservatives scored only 2.2% at the by-election, and lost their deposit. In 2024, their vote had been 10.9%, and in 2019, 34.4%.
The LibDems scored only 0.4% at the by-election (a mere 163 votes) as against 6.8% in 2024.
An indication of how far the credibility of both parties, Con and LibDem, has fallen in parts of the country.
Tweets seen
The so-called “vaccines” have done huge and hugely underreported damage to millions.
The growing anger and frustration of the British people may be expressed, by 2029, in Parliamentary form, or some other form(s).
I remain far from convinced that the “our Andy” show (complete with “our communities” and “our NHS“) will travel well anywhere very far south (or north, or east) of Manchester.
I saw a minute of so, on BBC TV News, of Burnham speaking today. He wants to “re-industrialise the North (of England)” (how? has he never heard of China?) and spread much money here and there. For me, not at all convincing or even interesting.
The Irish “tinker” or “traveller” element is also, of course, notorious for such activity. Others too.
I can recall, from when I was staying in some hotel on the Corniche in Alexandria (Egypt) in 1998, looking from my balcony and noticing an obviously wealthy Egyptian family in a large Mercedes stop, and a little girl, obviously instructed to do so, exit from the vehicle with all their fast food boxes and paper bags, and simply dump them over the parapet into the beautiful blue sea of the Eastern Harbour, which sea once would have been seen by Cleopatra, Mark Antony, Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus, not to mention Churchill and others.
If anyone is interested in a little more of my reminiscence of my 1998 visit to Egypt, please see:
[“If anyone doubts the power of community action over the @EnvAgency’s spineless inertia, you can walk to the outskirts of Ilford & walk along an ancient lost river to see for yourself.
With 10 days of intense effort by dedicated volunteers, the river River Roding Trust managed to clean up & restore 250 metres of the Aldersbrook (about 1/3 of the brook). This allows a direct comparison between the parts of the brook we restored & those we haven’t got round to yet.
These photos & videos are all from May 2026. The first is on a part of the Aldersbrook still to be restored & shows the old flood defences which are no longer needed & are killing the river but which the EA won’t remove unless we volunteers pay them £50,000 just for surveys.
These defences have caused 2-3ft of stinking sludge & silt to build up over 70 years, such that the water in the brook is just a few centimetres deep. Combine with huge amounts of rubbish & and out of control knotweed infestation & the river ecosystem is essentially dead.
A river that is older than England destroyed by official indifference.
A hundred metres away, and it’s a different story. The rubbish & the invasive species (I sprayed the knotweed myself last autumn) are gone. The silt that used to clog the river is now spread on the banks & rapidly providing fertile ground for native plants. Instead of sludge, there’s 2-3ft of water, so fish have returned to the brook for the first time in decades, along with dragon flies, herons & a nesting moorhen.
We river guardians knew our intervention would make a difference, but have been shocked at quite how quickly nature has come back. The restored Aldersbrook is now a rare jewel: pretty much the last fully natural tidal brook in London. The EA now has a choice. It can salvage some good from this situation & work with us to restore the remaining sections of the brook, or it can continue to do nothing. If the latter, river guardians *will* be back this winter to finish the job & the EA can see how well prosecuting volunteers for restoring a river without permission goes for them.“]
Bravo.
[“Around the country, a huge tree planting programme of our most important native tree is underway. But no bureaucrat decreed it in a policy paper, & it relies on no government funding. This mass planting is being carried out by nature herself.
2025 was a ‘mast year’ for acorns. In order to have the best chance of reproducing, some trees like oaks all produce a huge amount of acorns in the same year. This sheer abundance overwhelms creatures like squirrels that snack on the nuts, as they simply can’t eat them all.
Now, in woodlands & fields across the country, we see the results of this self-directed tree planting. Huge carpets of baby oaks that in some places are so thick they look like a grassy green lawn. I’ve honestly never seen so many oak saplings in my lifetime & this scene is all the more incredible given the oaks somehow knew to coordinate their reproduction like this.
Although this planting effort is natural, there are some things that humans can do to help. As self-sown oaks are usually significantly more vigorous & healthy than nursery grown saplings, encouraging these oaks will likely lead to much better trees than through planting.
What you can do depends on the local circumstances. Sometimes they can just be left to their own devices. If they have sown themselves in a area of high footfall, consider putting rocks or logs round them to stop trampling. If they are in an area with lots of deer, consider putting tree protectors round them, or fencing off areas of them. If we have a dry spell, watering your chosen oaks might help them through the dry patch. In choosing which of the many oaks out there you want to support, concentrate on those outside of the canopy of existing trees, where they will get light (the saplings under the shade of existing oaks are unlikely to make it long-term). You could also consider giving them light by removing invasive species (like rhododendron) or cutting back less ecologically useful trees (like sycamore), or potentially scrub (if there are no deer about) that are covering the baby oaks.
With a little bit of care, you could be helping to nurture a tree that will last for 500 years or more!“]
Ian Robert Millard 