(UrbanImages / Alamy)

6 min read17 min

It now seems overwhelmingly likely that Andy Burnham will be crowned as the next Labour leader, thus becoming prime minister, without a full contest ending in a vote of party members.

Plans are being drawn up that would see the decision instead lie principally with Labour MPs. Some might argue that this is acceptable, or even good, because members are not representative of the public anyway. Our findings suggest that assumption is not quite right, however.

Over the past 50 years, the powers of party members in the UK have increased significantly. All seven British parties now competing for electoral support have leadership election systems in which party members participate, with the sole exception of Reform UK. This trend in membership empowerment has resulted in both significant benefits and costs for the parties concerned. The benefits have been primarily financial, involving donations and subscription income in a climate of strict regulation of campaign finance, and also electoral, involving campaigning foot soldiers and online keyboard warriors. But the cost of this membership empowerment trend has been, on occasions, the election of party leaders who are unrepresentative of the party’s voters.

In 2015 the power to elect the Labour Party leadership was given to party members, registered supporters and affiliated members. These are the prevailing rules today, although the registered supporters’ section has been abolished and in 2021 the preliminary MP nomination threshold was raised from 10 per cent to 20 per cent of the parliamentary party. In the current House of Commons, candidates require the support of 81 Labour MPs.

To progress, candidates reaching the MP nomination threshold are then required to obtain support from at least five per cent of Constituency Labour Parties or three affiliated organisations (representing a total of five per cent of the affiliated membership), before the process usually moves on to a one-member-one-vote ballot. Party members are required to have a continuous membership of at least six months before they can participate in such a leadership ballot.

Thus, Labour Party members, in their choice of party leaders, typically play a key role in influencing the performance of the party in Parliament and in elections. This raises the question of whether this system is more likely to produce successful or failed leaders. The answer depends, in part, on how representative members are of the party’s wider supporters in the electorate. It also depends on the reliability of members’ judgements about who would make a successful leader.

A key to understanding this relationship between Labour voters and party members is to examine their respective views with respect to broad ideological beliefs. If the two differ in broad beliefs, this is more of a problem than if there are differences on specific issues that have always existed in political parties. Accordingly, we investigated this in relation to the two major ideological dimensions in British politics: the left-right division, which is primary; and the liberal-authoritarian division, which is secondary in importance.

We can identify the extent to which the attitudes of party members are representative of the electorate using data from the British Election Study internet panel wave 27, which contained questions about party membership and measures of ideology. This survey of the British electorate was conducted in 2024, shortly before the general election, with a sample size of 30,445. Some 471 respondents indicated that they were Labour Party members, making it possible to compare the opinions of the members with those of the voters.

The survey contained a battery of questions designed to measure the left-right ideological dimension in British politics. These are Likert scaled items in which respondents indicate if they agree or disagree with the various statements using a five-point scale. The statements are as follows:

• Government should redistribute income from the better off to those who are less well-off
• Big business takes advantage of ordinary people
• Ordinary working people do not get their fair share of the nation’s wealth
• There is one law for the rich and one for the poor
• Management will always try to get the better of employees if it gets the chance

By combining voters’ responses to these five statements, we can devise an overall Left-Right scale. The mean Left-Right ideology score for all voters is 10.5, which shows that the average voter in Britain is very much on the centre-left of the scale, whilst the mean score for Labour party members is 8.5. The distance between the two shows how ideologically close the members are to the average voter, although unsurprisingly Labour members are clearly more left-wing than voters.

Turning to the second ideological scale in British politics, the Liberal-Authoritarian scale, the survey included a battery of five items which can be used to identify this dimension. Agreement with the statements is consistent with an authoritarian set of values favouring tradition, obedience to authority, strict morality reinforced by censorship, and a punitive approach to dealing with crime. In contrast, disagreement with statements implies that the respondents are more liberal in their attitudes.  The statements are as follows:

• Young people today don’t respect traditional British values
• For some crimes, the death penalty is most appropriate sentence
• Schools should teach children to obey authority
• Censoring is necessary to uphold moral standards
• Lawbreakers should be given stiffer sentences

Among respondents there is a clear skew towards the authoritarian end of the scale with a mean score of 16.7 for all voters. Labour members score 13 on the scale. They are clearly significantly more liberal in their values on this scale than voters in general.

But overall we conclude that Labour Party members are not that unrepresentative of their voters. A recent assertion by The Economist that the party membership is “an unrepresentative body of left-wing anoraks” is wide of the mark.

That Labour members could, within weeks or months, elect a new leader and prime minister should concentrate their minds on the qualities required for this role. So, what ought they be looking for?

Archie Brown, the distinguished political scientist and historian, has suggested the following desirable qualities: integrity, intelligence, articulateness, collegiality, shrewd judgement, a questioning mind, willingness to seek disparate views, ability to absorb information, flexibility, good memory, courage, vision, empathy and boundless energy. To this list of desirable virtues we would add another – excellent communication skills.

It is, to put it mildly, unlikely that such a paragon is waiting in the wings. And however good the system for finding a new leader, it cannot identify someone who does not exist.

There is a good argument that nomination and scrutiny procedures should be as extensive as possible, given it is not just Labour’s leader that will emerge victorious but our prime minister. Yet on this occasion, the responsibility may well lie almost solely with Labour MPs.

Patrick Seyd and Paul Whiteley are professors of politics

Artist’s impression of a Forest City

6 min read22 min

“If you want my secret trick,” Shiv Malik teases, “I ask for an impossible task.”

The former journalist, now would-be developer, is trying to build a new city for a million people, and has been working on his skills of persuasion.

Forest City, as Malik and his co-founder Joe Reeve have dubbed the project, is the most ambitious British infrastructure project in a generation. The plan is for the city to be east of Cambridge, and to consist of 400,000 new homes and 18,000 hectares of land developed.

Malik’s stated goal is to combat the housing crisis, which he holds responsible for Britain’s lost growth and pessimistic outlook. Though, as of today, Malik has neither land for the project nor planning permission, and minimal local support. It’s also his first attempt at a development of any kind and the project would require support from Whitehall to stand a chance of success.

The pair are undeterred by their many detractors and present themselves as warriors in the cause of intergenerational fairness. Reeve has said of the naysayers, “The cavalry aren’t coming. We are the cavalry.”

“The journey started for me when I wrote Jilted Generation,” says Malik. “That was in September 2010, and just before the student riots. In that book, what we said [was] if we didn’t sort housing and infrastructure, the country would be much worse-off.

“We were proven right on that – and there was a shrug about it being so. I don’t think people comprehend that in 150 years of economic history this hasn’t happened before. Britain’s lack of housing is an abomination and an existential threat and I got tired of talking about it and wanted to do something.”

The plans are ambitious but lack clarity. Alongside housing, the proposal includes a reservoir and small modular nuclear reactors. In marketing material, luxurious mansion blocks are pictured on empty streets, as are modern timber buildings in pedestrianised areas, intersected by tramways and cycle paths.

He excitedly discusses passenger drones as a possibility for transport, but is less clear on how the project comes about on the ground.

And yet Forest City has some high-profile backers on its advisory board. These include former health secretary Patricia Hewitt, who also happens to be Malik’s mother-in-law. Malik tells The House that the board does not receive any money directly for their work, but will get a “very tiny equity stake” in the project.

He recently managed to persuade Paul Johnson, the former Institute for Fiscal Studies director, to join the advisory board after he completed his impossible task of getting more people with direct experience of development involved. To cajole Jackie Sadek, an influential voice on urban development, he convinced one landowner to support the project. One down, thousands to go.

Despite ticking off some of his impossible tasks already, he has many more ahead of him. Given the project’s 32-year planned timeline, it could well be the 45-year-old’s last too.

The odds seem stacked against success – the project needs to raise £250m in capital from institutional investors in the next two years. Nick Timothy, the local Conservative MP, initially ignored the project, labelling it “ridiculous”, but has begun to organise politically against it.

“Nick Timothy writes about building new towns in the south, but when someone proposes it in his area he says ‘No’,” counters Malik. “Everyone knows a local MP is going to oppose a development in their area, so no one pays attention any more.”

But even former supporters have grown frustrated at the frequent changes to the plan.

“There are definitely not rigid plans – there can’t be,” Malik justifies. “For us, one of the most central things is the cost of a house. Excluding the land costs, where we already have an advantage, can we build a four-bed house for £350,000? The rest of the market is saying, ‘No way’, we think we can. Those things are quite fundamental.”

“Britain’s lack of housing is an abomination and an existential threat”

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While the pure numbers sound like a great investment opportunity, it comes with a very heavy caveat. As part of the agreement to buy, a complex financial structure would mean buyers would not be able to profit from future sales.

Currently, the arrangement would render mortgages far more complex in the million-person city complex. Simon Dudley, the former interim chair of Homes England, and briefly Reform UK’s housing and infrastructure spokesperson until his sacking, labelled the project a “recipe for disaster” and raised questions about the land value structure’s impact on mortgages.

Malik acknowledges the existing problem, but believes it can be overcome. “Nationwide already has a mortgage for community land trust housing, it’s not quite the product we need but we’ll get there.”

In spite of his grand plans to revolutionise mortgages, cities and British development, he says his role currently is more akin to that of a door-to-door salesman, albeit selling the biggest urban development in the UK since the Second World War.

“Most of my job is going house by house in a village, they’ll make cake and we’ll talk for two hours and they say, ‘I get why you’re doing it, I just don’t want it here’ – most private developers don’t do that.”

While his attempts to persuade locals and get answers might be regarded as admirable, he leaves the door open to pressing ahead without agreement.

“It is a bit of a dead end… really, then, it’s about… where do we draw the line on democratic consent?

“If you own the land and everyone has a veto, then everyone vetoes it. People in villages know the extent of their remit, and it is a much larger project. It’s a difficult trade-off and it’s one that should be compensated, and you don’t want to get miserly on,” he says, adding another few columns on an ever-inflating mental spreadsheet of potential costs.

As the project develops, political support becomes more important.

He outlines a thesis of how the development is in tune with the sort of politics Andy Burnham has championed in Manchester.

“If the next prime minister is Andy Burnham, what he’s talking about is what Forest City should deliver – place-based politics, thinking about the fundamentals. How to do this differently in a globalised world in a place owned by distant shareholders.”

“We’re very close at this point to moving to phase two – and we must give investors enough confidence that this is a seriously considered project,” he outlines. “At that stage, we need to raise £250m within two years. We need to demonstrate we’re not just stuck in the planning world and that good enough is good to go.”

If successful, the project will likely take more than 30 years to complete, at which point Malik will be in his late 70s. He hopes to be retired by then and living in Forest City. 

(Alamy)

3 min read46 min

Speaking to Sky News, Jones claimed that he had the backing of enough MPs to run for Labour leader, but had decided not to challenge Burnham after being “reassured” over the former Manchester mayor’s plans for economic policy.

Asked by Sky News if he was going to stand for Labour leader, Jones said: “I’m not”.

PoliticsHome was the first to reveal in May that Jones had sparked suspicion among colleagues that he was quietly sounding out support for a future leadership bid of his own.

When asked this week if he had the 81 nominations necessary to allow him to stand in a contest, Jones said: “Well, there were definitely upwards of 100 MPs who have expressed concern, either around contest, or economic policy, or who were just feeling pretty depressed off the back of Keir Starmer resigning.”

“Andy Burnham is going to be the next prime minister. And if there was a contest of Labour Party members, he would win. So the question for me is, well, what would the benefit be to the country and to the party of a leadership contest?”

Starmer announced on Monday that he would resign as PM this summer, triggering the process to replace him as leader, which could conclude as early as next month.

After winning a resounding victory in the Makerfield by-election last week, Burnham was sworn in as an MP on Monday and has confirmed his intention to stand as leader to replace Starmer. 

PoliticsHome reported last week that Burnham would use his first day in Westminster to meet with Labour MPs with whom he does not have strong relationships, like those elected at the 2024 general election.

On Monday, former health secretary Wes Streeting, who had been expected to stand in any leadership contest, announced his support for Burnham. In a post on X, Streeting said: “We could spend the summer exaggerating small differences, or we can roll up our sleeves and help him to deliver the change our Party and our country needs. That is the choice that I am making and I hope that everyone else will back Andy, too.”

Jones, who is a key Starmer ally, told Sky News that he felt “disappointed” about the way the PM had been treated.

“I felt, in many ways, I felt a bit disappointed in the way that Keir has been treated,” he said.

“But look, if you were to ask Keir that question, he’s pretty pragmatic, too.

“He recognises this as the cut and thrust of politics. There’s been no wrongdoing here.”  

For years, Greece’s international reputation rested on an image of its recognisable coastlines and ancient ruins – a place people associated with escapism and holidays. Today, it is carving out a new image as a place of opportunity.

The numbers tell one part of the story. According to the Bank of Greece, the country welcomed 40.7 million inbound travellers in 2024 and generated €21.59 billion in travel receipts. Those figures confirm Greece’s position as one of Europe’s tourism powerhouses. Yet today, that is just one part of Greece’s story.

A decade ago, professionals largely followed jobs. Today, many jobs follow professionals. Technology has untethered millions of workers from a fixed location, creating a new class of internationally mobile talent with genuine freedom over where they base themselves. For these individuals, Greece has become an increasingly attractive proposition.

Its appeal is not difficult to understand. It combines a high quality of life with strong international connectivity, access to the Schengen Area, a favourable climate and a cost base that remains competitive compared with many Western European cities. For someone able to work from anywhere, those factors carry real weight.

The introduction of Greece’s Digital Nomad Visa in 2021 was an early recognition of this trend. More importantly, it signalled that policymakers understood a larger reality: attracting talent is becoming just as important as attracting tourists.

Recent decisions also demonstrate how seriously Greece takes its tourism sector. In response to concerns that the European Union’s new Entry/Exit System could create lengthy queues and disruption for travellers, Greek authorities moved to simplify arrival procedures for British visitors, one of the country’s most important tourism markets. The move reflected a broader willingness to prioritise visitor experience and maintain Greece’s competitiveness in an increasingly crowded international travel market.

Meanwhile, digital nomads are often dismissed as little more than holidaymakers with laptops. In reality, they can be something much more valuable. They rent apartments, support local businesses, build professional networks, and, in many cases, stay far longer than traditional visitors. Some eventually establish companies. Others invest in property. Many become repeat residents. In that sense, digital nomads sit at the intersection of tourism and investment. They are often the bridge between the two.

The same logic can be seen in Greece’s approach to investment migration. The country’s restructured Golden Visa programme, with investment thresholds of €800,000, €400,000 and targeted €250,000 options, reflects a shift away from volume and towards longer-term contribution. The objective is not simply to attract capital, but to attract people with a stake in Greece’s future.

What makes Greece particularly well-positioned is that these trends reinforce one another. Tourism creates familiarity. Familiarity encourages longer stays. Longer stays lead to investment and, in some cases, relocation. Few countries possess such a strong tourism brand while simultaneously offering pathways for residence, investment and remote work.

The relationship between tourism and mobility is becoming increasingly important. Millions of British travellers visit Greece every year, and policymakers understand that today’s visitor can become tomorrow’s remote worker, investor or resident. Measures designed to make travel smoother and more accessible help strengthen that pipeline, turning short-term tourism flows into longer-term economic participation.

Spain has built an impressive ecosystem for digital nomads. Portugal has long been a leader in international mobility. Italy continues to benefit from its cultural prestige and global appeal. Greece does not necessarily dominate any one category. Its advantage is that it performs strongly across all of them.

For decades, Greece’s reputation was built on what people came to see. Its future may depend just as much on the people who decide to stay.

Katie Lam is a shadow Home Office minister and MP for Weald of Kent.

In his farewell speech to the nation, Keir Starmer talked of “what [he’d] achieved in just two years”. You’d be forgiven for thinking that this was a bad attempt at a joke – but the outgoing Prime Minister seemed to be completely serious.

After nearly two years of Starmer, we’ve made little-to-no progress on the major problems facing our country. In fact, he’s made a lot of our existing issues worse, and created a whole host of new ones.

Take his talk of “an economy that is stronger, growing faster than our peers”. The British economy has in fact grown by just 1.1 percent a year since Labour came into Government – less than half of what the US has achieved. The latest quarterly national accounts data says that, on a per person basis, our economy is actually shrinking.

The Prime Minister says that we should be grateful for, “wages rising faster than inflation”. In July 2024, wages were growing at more than 5 percent a year, while inflation was at 2.2 percent (2.8 percentage points less). By this April, inflation was up to 2.8 percent, while wage growth was down to 3.4 percent — so the gap has shrunk to about half a percentage point. In short, it’s becoming more difficult for people to afford the essentials, just as their wages aren’t growing as fast as they were.

Starmer spoke of “investment secured, infrastructure being built”. That’s despite the fact that, in the first quarter of 2026, business investment was nearly 2 percent lower than a year before. Meanwhile, more than half of new infrastructure projects signed off by this Government have been delayed. The Cambridge Waste Water Treatment Plant was delayed by six months before being cancelled – but not before £80 million of taxpayer money was spent on planning.

Next came his appeals to the Labour left – “an end to austerity”. If by “an end to austerity”, he meant “putting up taxes, despite promising not to, to pay for more welfare”, he was right – thanks to Starmer, we’re spending billions more on people who don’t work.

Then he claimed to have overseen “the biggest improvement in rights for workers and renters in a generation” – but making it harder for people to get a job, or to find somewhere to rent, isn’t an “improvement” in anybody’s rights. Thanks to Labour’s changes, the number of job opportunities is at the lowest level since the pandemic, and rents continue to rise.

“The biggest uplift in defence spending since the Cold War” – despite the fact that his own Defence Secretary resigned just last week, saying that Starmer was “unwilling to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country”.

“Small boat crossings falling” – despite the fact that crossings have actually increased by nearly 10,000 people a year since he came into office.

“Asylum hotels closing” – but only because the Government is now pushing illegal migrants directly into our communities.

And then there are the things that Starmer didn’t mention. Scrapping jury trials, enabling vexatious prosecutions against Northern Ireland veterans, letting tens of thousands of criminals a year avoid prison, and taking the disastrous decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as US Ambassador. He let Bridget Phillipson wreck the curriculum, let David Lammy continue to inject group-based grievance politics into our judiciary, and let Ed Miliband blow up our homegrown oil and gas industry.

His record speaks for itself. Keir Starmer was a complete failure.

If there was a silver lining to Starmer’s tenure as Prime Minister, it was his weakness – which made it possible for Kemi Badenoch and the Conservatives to force him into u-turn after u-turn. He was dragged into holding a national inquiry into the grooming gangs, into watering down his family farm tax, and into scrapping his plans for digital ID.

Of course, Keir Starmer didn’t act alone. He was supported along the way by more than 400 Labour MPs, almost all of whom supported these changes. When they pushed back, it wasn’t because they recognised how terrible Starmer’s instincts were – it’s because they wanted him to double down. They rebelled when he tried to reduce the growth of the welfare bill – not the total amount, just the growth. As Labour’s own Welfare Secretary said, the first question raised by Labour MPs is always “who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others?”.

And so, while Starmer might be going away, the Labour Party isn’t. Their MPs will remain the same, and so will the challenges facing the country. Though much-touted as a fresh face, Andy Burnham is an establishment Labour man, through and through. He was first elected as a Labour MP in 2001, while I was still at primary school; he served in Gordon Brown’s Cabinet.

Regardless of the churn at the top, the fundamentals remain the same. Labour will not secure our borders, they will not cut our ballooning welfare bill, and they will not do what’s necessary to keep our country safe. They are simply not dispositionally or ideologically capable of making the trade-offs that we need to make in order to fix any of these problems.

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