Andy Burnham’s new government, barely 24 hours in power, is in danger of collectively losing its marbles. The fault lies largely with the new PM who appears unable to shake off the habit of a lifetime of being all things to all people, and eager for cheap applause whenever the opportunity presents itself. How else to make sense of the unseemly haste with which he reprimanded two senior cabinet ministers for a poor joke about the early prisoner release scheme? A public and humiliating rebuke handed out for the ‘crime’ of a joke in poor taste. Stupid and insensitive, maybe, but nothing more. What is politics coming to?

Is this a free country or is it a place where any public misstep deemed inappropriate must result in immediate public recantation of the most demeaning kind?

Is this a free country or is it a place where any public misstep deemed inappropriate must result in immediate public recantation of the most demeaning kind?

The comments – what passes for banter in the largely humourless world of our rulers – by Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, and Wes Streeting, the Defence Secretary, were caught on a ‘hot mic’ as ministers mingled in the Downing Street garden. Apparently unaware of the presence of live microphones, Mahmood, a former justice........

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