3 min read20 min

Brown brought in a set of advisers he had worked with for years, a sense of changes he wanted to make to the centre of government, and policy that included a big programme of constitutional reform.  

But the adjustment from Chancellor to Prime Minister – and being the face of all aspects of government – was one which Brown struggled to make, and his premiership was knocked off course by the financial crisis. Brown was lauded for his response, but many of his plans for power remained undelivered.   

While Burnham has long held prime ministerial ambitions, his ascent to the job could still be far more rapid than Brown’s. But you cannot undertake a comprehensive preparation for government programme in under a month and Burnham and his team should not try. 

Speeches in the weeks ahead look set to reveal more about his plans for power, but there are other key steps he needs to focus on: prioritising early decisions about policy in the first weeks in government, using access talks to ensure the civil service can also help make the transition a success and identify the people he wants to take into government. 

Burnham is likely inundated with ideas from helpful well-wishers for what he should do – he should shelve much of it for after the trip to the Palace. If he does take over at the start of parliamentary recess, Burnham and his team will have the rest of the summer to continue working through the huge amounts of policy he will inherit or has been thinking about. They would do so with the support of the whole of the civil service and a far better insight into what is currently going on inside government. He will also have to govern during that period, and should be prepared to be hit by events, crises or political distractions, but he can still turn the timetable into a benefit. What he should focus on now is his overall vision and the top priorities for early change.  

Access talks are the crucial first step to building a relationship with the civil service, particularly the Cabinet Secretary. But there is a limit to what they can do, particularly in this context. The Civil Service cannot start serving him, but they can listen to and probe his plans. Burnham should use them to focus on the policies he wants to prioritise early on, the problems he is likely to inherit, the changes he wants to make to structures, and how he wants to work.  

With three years at best before the next election, Burnham cannot afford a No.10 that descends into confusion about who does what or infighting over whose ideas dominate. Burnham needs his No.10 to speak authentically and consistently for him if he wants the system to be clear on what it is supposed to be doing. He needs to be thinking about how to appoint a high-performing team around him, selected in terms of who he needs, not just who he knows and wants to reward. He will have to let some people down.  

Appointing his No10 team will be followed by Burnham’s first ministerial reshuffle. He will want to think about policy or political signals, balancing party factions and giving encouragement to MPs, but he also needs to think about where continuity on existing policy or performance in the role means avoiding changes, particularly in the junior ranks who are too often the victims of the tail-end of reshuffles. If he wants to make a difference to the performance of his government, he would do well to plan changes by department, focusing on building ministerial teams, not just slotting names into whatever gaps are left.   

Andy Burnham probably has less than a month to think about how he will do the job that is more demanding than anything he faced as a government minister or mayor of Manchester. There is much that he can do to prepare, but he needs to be ruthless with how he uses this time.  

These are the people whose job it was to stop the leadership of the SNP from stealing almost £700,000 of “ringfenced” fundraiser money from independence supporters, and who utterly failed at that job.

It was also their job to stop Peter Murrell stealing the best part of £500,000 from the SNP, in a separate but related crime, and they failed at that one too.

A small handful of them (marked with red asterisks) tried their best to do their duties, and were blocked primarily by one powerful woman – Nicola Sturgeon – and a room full of cowards, weaklings and bullies, listed above.

This video is a horrifying watch.

?

But the most shocking part comes about 12 minutes in. Allison Graham, a member of the SNP’s Finance and Audit Committee (FAC) as well as its National Executive Committee (NEC) relates how at an NEC meeting on 20 March 2021 she read out a statement from herself and two other FAC members.

Though the statement was quite diplomatically phrased considering the seriousness of the issues, the response to it from the online meeting was a sustained personal attack on Allison Graham from Cllr Ian Cockburn, then the co-leader of the SNP group on Highland Council and who’d completed a law degree just three years earlier.

Despite therefore presumably knowing that he and the other NEC members were legally liable for the SNP’s finances, Cockburn laid into Allison Graham to the extent that she physically bowed her head in front of her PC screen, and then the rest of the committee – including Nicola Sturgeon – joined the pile-on, with both anger and mockery.

Most of those doing so were women, but alert readers will have also spotted the eternally poisonous Glasgow councillor Graham Campbell – part of Sturgeon’s inner circle and seen on the far right of the pic below – going so far as to say that a member of the party’s Finance & Audit Committee shouldn’t even have been allowed to read out a statement expressing the FAC’s concerns about the party finances at a meeting of its National Executive Committee.

(In other words, that the FAC literally should have been prevented from doing its job of warning the NEC about a massive seven-figure gap in the SNP’s accounts.)

This was entirely in character for Campbell, who at around the same time was demanding that anyone having any dealings (even retweets on Twitter) with Wings Over Scotland – which was also trying to warn SNP members and indy supporters that their money had been stolen – should be expelled from the party.

Ian Cockburn and Christina Cannon, incidentally, are still on the SNP NEC today.

Allison Graham had read out the statement from the FAC members in the hope that it would be recorded as part of the minutes of the meeting.

But the NEC had stopped properly recording minutes of its meetings in November 2020 – by a remarkable coincidence, the exact same month that Douglas Chapman had been elected as Treasurer specifically on a platform of greater financial transparency, and recruited Allison Graham, Cynthia Guthrie and Frank Ross to help him in that aim – and started providing party members with only “Outcome Of Business” notes.

This is all ordinary party members were told about the 20 March meeting:

And even NEC members got only this:

It’s important to emphasise once again that at this stage concerns were only about the missing fundraiser money, not Peter Murrell’s personal embezzlement from the party.

The SNP’s accounts for 2020 wouldn’t be published until months after the FAC members resigned, and by the end of 2019 Murrell had only pilfered around £210,000 –  a small fraction of the amount of the discrepancy the FAC had noticed.

But all attempts to solve the problem had been frustrated not just by Murrell – who had obvious motivations to keep the finances away from prying eyes – but by the aggressive hostility of the NEC, the very body that was supposed to hold him accountable, driven by the attitude of the party leader.

And as Cynthia Guthrie ruefully notes, that was the real problem.

Nicola Sturgeon’s involvement in the coverup of the dodgy finances goes far beyond mere ignorance, far beyond even a wildly reckless lack of curiosity. She actively, brutally crushed any attempt to warn those responsible for the SNP’s finances of any alarming issues about them.

The FAC members told all of this to Operation Branchform police. And yet still nobody has been held accountable for this misappropriation of hundreds of thousands of pounds solicited from donors on a false premise, and which the SNP now admits had already been spent on something else long before the FAC members resigned and long before the majority of Peter Murrell’s embezzlement.

Alex Kerr, who was on that 2020 NEC, is now an MSP and SNP National Secretary.

Kirsten Oswald, the Business Convener who shut down every attempt by the FAC to raise the issue with the NEC, is now an MSP and a government minister.

(Hilariously, the SNP issued a statement yesterday that Oswald had been committed to transparently updating party members about what had happened at NEC meetings.

Let’s just remind ourselves what Oswald told members about a meeting where half the party’s Finance Committee had resigned because they had extremely grave concerns about the party’s finances and the Chief Executive’s refusal to provide them with even the most basic information required to do their job.)

Alison Thewliss, who was on the 2020 NEC, is now an MSP.

Ian Cockburn, who instigated the pile-on against Allison Graham – the only time he ever spoke at an NEC meeting, Allison told Wings earlier today –  has now resigned from Highland Council but is still on the SNP NEC.

Christina Cannon, who also joined the pile-on, is still on the NEC and is an SNP councillor in Glasgow.

Graham Campbell, who thought it was outrageous that the Finance & Audit Committee was even allowed to report to the NEC on the party’s finances, is a councillor in the same ward as Christina Cannon, and chairs the SNP’s BAME Network.

Farah Farzana, who also joined in the pile-on and is also a former chair of the SNP BAME Network, describes herself as a “social injustice activist” [sic] and is currently Equalities And Human Rights Officer at Falkirk Council. She was the Scottish Parliament’s “ambassador” for World Hijab Day, and remains active in the SNP.

Heather Anderson, who also joined the pile-on, became an SNP MSP last month, giving her oath in “Dundonian Scots”. She previously founded Scottish Human Services, a charitable trust focused on “inclusion”.

Laura Brennan-Whitefield, who also joined the pile-on, is an SNP councillor. When seeking to be elected to the NEC in 2018, she expressed her wish to “influence Party policy in a progressive way”.

Stacy Bradley, who also joined the pile-on, stepped down as an SNP office-bearer in 2024 in order to concentrate on a new career as a trainee criminal defence solicitor, which might come in handy in the future.

Emma Hendrie, who also joined in the pile-on, campaigned actively in the SNP’s “Young Scots for Independence” wing, also known as the Twitler Youth, for the decriminalisation of sex work. (She’s the brunette on the right of the pic below.)

When seeking re-election to the NEC in 2020, she said “Constructive criticism is always welcome”, which we’re sure will come as comforting news to Allison Graham. Hendrie to have subsequently vanished from public view.

Findlay MacGregor, who also joined in the pile-on, is the brother of SNP MSP Fulton MacGregor. He was re-elected to the NEC in 2021 after all the pro-accountability “rebels” elected in 2020 were pushed out. This 2019 campaign pic is almost all we know about him.

All of the people above, and all the other members of the 2020 SNP NEC who didn’t resign, are complicit – either actively, as in the cases of those we’ve just listed, or passively in the cases of others – in the cover-up of the theft of the fundraiser money (and also in the cover-up of Peter Murrell’s embezzlement).

All failed in their duty to the party as NEC members, and in their legal fiduciary duties. All of them bear responsibility for the subsequent calamities that befell the SNP, because none of them asked the questions it was their job to ask, and instead attacked those who did.

But what the testimony of the FAC members this week really demonstrates is that everyone who didn’t resign from the NEC in 2021 was involved in a crime for which nobody has yet been held to account, and that it is now even more astonishing that the Crown Office decided not to even try to prosecute anyone for it, and refuses to offer any sort of explanation for why.

?

Crown Agent John Logue’s comments tell us nothing. WHY were the police and Crown Office not able to establish fraud, as the money had demonstrably been spent, and not on what it was raised for? And HOW were they able to establish there’d been no fraud, as at the point when the focus of the investigation switched from the fundraiser fraud to Murrell’s embezzlement they hadn’t questioned anyone in the SNP leadership? Like a magpie distracted by a shiny object, they simply dropped all the twigs they were carrying and went after their new prize.

The SNP was the victim of a crime, but also the perpetrator of one, and until the latter is addressed we’re all just being told to Wheesht For Nicola.

(Avico Ltd / Alamy)

4 min read8 min

This year marks a milestone for animal protection across the UK.

Within the space of a week, both the Welsh and Scottish Parliaments passed legislation to introduce a ban on greyhound racing in their respective nations.

This year also marks the 100-year anniversary of greyhound racing, with the first race in Manchester in July 1926. After a century of the practice, this anniversary must be more than a milestone. It marks a moment to recognise the harm caused, confront the failures of the industry, and acknowledge that public opinion has moved on.

England now faces a clear choice: follow suit or risk becoming an outlier – undermining our credibility on animal protection and damaging our reputation as a global leader.

Concerns around animal protection continue to overshadow the greyhound racing industry. The life of most racing dogs is marked by isolation and misery. Typically confined to unclean kennels, dogs face little social interaction, rough handling, and untreated wounds.

The industry’s own data reflects this crisis. More than 31,000 greyhounds were injured between 2017 and 2024, with thousands more put down – often because the costs of treatment have outweighed the value placed on their lives.

Data also shows that over 600 dogs have fallen during races this year – more than four every day. It has also identified more than 2,000 dogs who have raced since January but have not been seen in over a month, nor reported as adopted or retired. With the industry’s horrific track record, I am deeply concerned about the fate of these dogs.

These figures are all the more worrying given they sit alongside concerns about the effectiveness of the industry’s self-regulation. Statistics from the Greyhound Board of Great Britain (GBGB) show over 100 breaches of their own rules since the start of last year, which reports indicate amount to over 200 potential criminal offences. This includes serious cases of dangerous neglect and failures to protect dogs from injury and death, alongside broader issues such as substance misuse and integrity violations.

Yet none of these cases appear to have been referred to the police. Instead, reports suggest that the industry handles these cases internally, issuing only weak, ineffective sanctions.

As a nation of animal lovers, this isn’t something we can continue to ignore.

Those in favour of the sport argue that it is a ‘cornerstone’ of working-class life and a contributor to jobs and economic growth. But these claims simply don’t stand up to scrutiny.

Public attitudes are shifting. Interest in the sport is in decline, with the vast majority disengaged. Public petitions have demonstrated clear public backing for change and a growing expectation that Government action will follow. Working class culture evolves over time and simply because racing was traditionally seen as a working-class pastime – that in itself is not reason enough to defend it and the mistreatment of the dogs that are involved.

The economic case for the sport is equally weak. While the industry cites a £55m annual contribution to our economy, independent evidence shows that the sector sustains a limited number of low-wage roles without delivering meaningful long-term economic value. This is not a serious growth industry, but rather a sector seeking to be shielded from its own loss of public support.

As a gambling product, greyhound racing is inseparable from gambling harm – with real costs for both society and the public purse.

The impacts of gambling-related harm are widespread and devastating, reaching into families and communities across the country and placing additional strain on already stretched public services.

We cannot allow industry narratives to obscure this reality.

As greyhound racing approaches 100-year anniversary, I urge the government to use this moment to reconsider its position and bring forward legislation to ban greyhound racing in England, aligning with the direction of travel in Scotland and Wales.

Doing so would place animal protection firmly at the heart of policymaking, properly reflect the values of a nation of animal lovers, and help deliver on this Labour government’s commitment to reduce gambling harms.

Neil Duncan-Jordan is the Labour MP for Poole

Credit: Kennan Constance, Unsplash

The regulated betting and gaming sector takes gambling harm seriously and recognises its responsibility to protect consumers. Millions of adults enjoy betting safely each month, but we know gambling can cause harm for a small number of individuals and families. NHS figures estimate that 0.7 per cent of adults experience problem gambling, and every one of those cases is a cause for concern. That is why our members continue to invest heavily in safer gambling tools, technology and interventions designed to reduce risk and support those who need help.

But if we are serious about protecting consumers, we must also be serious about confronting the growing threat posed by the criminal gangs operating the illegal gambling market.

Recent claims have suggested concerns about illegal gambling are overstated because unlicensed operators account for less than 10 per cent of the market. Even if that figure is accepted, it should alarm everyone involved in this debate.

Britain is home to 22.5 million adults who place a bet each month. If anything close to one in ten pounds staked is taking place with illegal operators, that is not a reassuringly small figure. It represents a major consumer protection failure, exposing hundreds of thousands of consumers to criminal operators who offer none of the protections available in the regulated market.

That is not a marginal issue. It is one of the most significant consumer protection challenges facing the sector today.

Independent analysis by H2GC forecasts that stakes with illegal operators could almost double from £17bn in 2025 to more than £33bn by 2028. On that trajectory, almost one in every five pounds staked online could be placed with an unlicensed operator within three years.

That should concern anyone who genuinely cares about reducing gambling-related harm. Because every customer who moves from a regulated operator to a criminal one loses the protections, safeguards and interventions designed to keep them safe.

Too often, discussions about gambling policy focus solely on restrictions placed on licensed operators, without considering where customers go if they become frustrated with the regulated market. History shows that consumers do not stop gambling because of increased regulation, product restrictions or outright bans. Many seek alternatives.

When they do, illegal operators are waiting.

Unlike licensed betting and gaming businesses, black market operators are not accountable to the Gambling Commission. They do not have to conduct safer gambling interventions. They do not participate in self-exclusion schemes such as GAMSTOP. They do not face the same requirements around age verification, customer protection or anti-money laundering checks. They pay no UK tax, contribute nothing to British sport and have no obligation to support research, prevention or treatment programmes.

Most importantly, they offer customers no meaningful protection when things go wrong.

That distinction matters. Customers who use licensed operators know games are independently tested, funds are protected and winnings are paid fairly, protections that simply cannot be guaranteed in the illegal market.

The debate should never be framed as a choice between regulation and no regulation. The real question is whether policies strengthen the regulated market or inadvertently drive consumers towards illegal alternatives.

Well-designed regulation is essential. But regulation must also be proportionate, evidence-led and focused on achieving its intended outcomes. It should be reviewed regularly, with policymakers and regulators willing to adapt when evidence shows change is needed.

The impact of regulation must always be assessed in the round. Policymakers should consider the cumulative effect of multiple interventions rather than drawing conclusions from individual measures in isolation.

When customers remain within the regulated sector, they are protected by a framework of safeguards that has become increasingly robust in recent years. Standards have risen significantly, and operators continue to work closely with regulators, government and charities to improve protections further.

The danger comes when policies create incentives for customers to seek out operators who simply ignore British law altogether.

Every customer lost to the black market is a customer lost to protection.

This challenge requires a coordinated response. The Government’s Illegal Gambling Taskforce is a welcome step forward, but it must be matched by practical action.

The Betting and Gaming Council has proposed a five-point plan to tackle illegal gambling, including stronger action against illegal advertising, faster disruption of unlicensed websites, tighter controls on payment providers facilitating unlawful transactions, greater accountability for businesses that enable illegal operators, and tougher enforcement against those targeting British consumers.

This is not about protecting the interests of licensed operators. It is about protecting consumers.

There will always be those who oppose gambling in all its forms. But policymakers should be wary of arguments that minimise the risks posed by criminal operators or dismiss concerns about consumer migration to the black market.

There is a fundamental difference between a regulated British business operating under licence and an illegal offshore operator operating outside the law.

One is accountable. The other is not.

One is required to protect customers. The other has no such obligation.

One contributes to society through jobs, tax revenues and support for sport. The other simply extracts money from British consumers while avoiding responsibility.

That is why the debate about illegal gambling matters.

Whether the black market accounts for five per cent, nine per cent or more today is not the point. The real question is whether policymakers are willing to act before it grows larger still.

Rachel Reeves is expected to lose her role under Andy Burnham’s premiership (Alamy)

2 min read34 min

Speaking to the BBC on Thursday morning, Reeves said: “I’m supporting Andy to be prime minister.”

Keir 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.

It comes after reports that Reeves will lose her job as Chancellor under the former Manchester mayor and instead be handed a more junior role.

Reeves, who has been in the role since Labour won the general election in July 2024, had hoped to stay in No 11, but The Times reported that Burnham’s allies had concluded a personnel change was needed to show a shift in direction. 

Sky News reported earlier this week that Reeves’ aides had been calling Britain’s top businesses asking them to lobby Burnham to keep her as Chancellor.

On Thursday, Reeves said she had known Burnham for “more than a decade and a half” but was “not going to pre-empt his decisions” about top jobs.

Burnham was sworn in as the MP of Makerfield on Monday after winning a landslide by-election victory. It is looking increasingly likely that he will become PM next month. His likeliest contender former health secretary We Streeting on Monday announced his support for Burnham.

The Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones has also said he will not be standing in a leadership contest for Labour leader, after sparking suspicion among colleagues that he was quietly sounding out support for a future leadership bid of his own.

In recent years, British governments have passed laws to limit or prohibit the use of rodent glue traps. But given that these traps are still widely available through major online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay, and in hundreds of hardware stores in England, it’s understandable that most people don’t know that using these traps could lead to a criminal conviction. The problem is a fragmented patchwork of legislation that is putting both animals and the public at risk. 

We’re urging action from the UK Government to get the public, retailers and animals out of this sticky situation.  

What are glue traps? 

Glue traps are flat cardboard or plastic boards coated with a strong adhesive. Food is added as bait and when animals run across the board they become stuck. Trapped animals may struggle for hours, sustaining severe injuries such as torn skin, broken bones, and can even chew through or tear off their limbs while trying to escape.  

While these traps are designed to catch insects or rodents, they are indiscriminate. Animal rescue organisations report cases of robins, bats, hedgehogs and even cats being caught and killed.¹ 

What are the current laws? 

In Wales, the use of glue traps has been illegal since October 2023, but sale to the public remains legal. In England, the Glue Traps (Offences) Act 2022 made it an offence to set a glue trap without a licence (only issued to professional pest controllers in limited circumstances), but our research has shown that they are still widely available for public purchase.² In Scotland, the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024 went further by banning the use, supply and possession of glue traps.  

The Internal Market Act 2020 prevented devolved governments from enacting sales bans unless a specific exclusion was permitted by the UK Government. In February 2026, the UK Government passed the exclusion regulation requested by the Scottish Government. This contributed to a delay of nearly two years between legislation being passed and the ban taking effect on 1^st July 2026.  

Why aren’t the laws working? 

Professional pest controllers appear to have moved away from using glue traps, and most national DIY and hardware chains have ceased selling them. But our research suggests that hundreds of independent shops in England are selling these traps for as little as £1.99, promising ‘safe’, ‘effective’ and ‘non-toxic’ control of unwanted rodents. Major online marketplaces such as Amazon also still list them, sometimes rebranded as insect traps and with misleading claims such as ‘harmless to both humans and pets’.³ 

In March 2026, the Animal Sentience Committee published a report noting the clear evidence that glue traps capable of trapping rodents remain on sale at retailers and online in England, and warned that “the continued sale of glue traps has the effect of placing people at significant risk of breaking the law”.⁴ Products rebranded as insect traps often lack any guidance on how to humanely kill a trapped rodent, leading to additional suffering for trapped animals. Some shops contacted by Humane World for Animals’ mystery shopper suggested putting trapped animals, still alive, in the bin, or flushing them down the toilet. These would be offences under the Animal Welfare Act 2006.  

Enforcement is also a problem, with evidence indicating that some police forces have received no specific training on the new law and no guidance on handling reports.⁵ A combination of widespread availability and lack of enforcement means that Britain has bans on cruel glue traps on paper, but not in practice.  

What comes next? 

On 1^st July, Scotland’s new comprehensive ban on the sale, use and possession of glue traps will come into effect. This will be the strongest restriction on glue traps in the UK, and is extremely welcome. But for NatureScot and Police Scotland to prevent glue trap use they must overcome significant enforcement challenges, including preventing the use of traps purchased in England or online. 

There is a simpler solution.  

If British governments accept that glue traps are cruel enough to justify criminal restrictions on their use, then continuing to allow public sale makes no sense. The simplest and most effective next step is for England and Wales to also ban their sale, online and offline. A full ban on use and sale would give much-needed clarity to the public and retailers and make enforcement achievable.  

Without this, the law will remain muddled, animals will continue to suffer needlessly, and the public will remain at risk of buying products that they cannot legally use, and facing criminal convictions if caught. If we are serious about ending the cruelty of glue traps, a piecemeal approach can no longer be an option. The UK Government and the Senedd must follow Holyrood’s lead and ban the sale of glue traps. 

References

Advertisement
1. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0m4exrp0k9o 
2. https://www.humaneworld.org/en/news/undercover-shopping-reveals-widespread-high-street-sale-cruel-rodent-glue-traps-despite-being  
3. https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=mice+trap&crid=ZKSIPJV796RP&sprefix=mice+trap%2Caps%2C127&ref=nb_sb_noss_1 
4. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/animal-sentience-committee-glue-traps-offences-act-2022/animal-sentience-committee-views-on-animals-as-sentient-beings-in-relation-to-the-glue-traps-offences-act-2022 
5. https://bpca.org.uk/News/met-police-caught-unprepared-on-glue-trap-act-2022/278534