We don’t have much to say about this graph that it doesn’t say for itself.

The arrest of Peter Murrell on 5 April 2023, just a couple of weeks after his wife realised the game was up and walked away before the cops came round and put a big blue tent up on their front garden, changed everything in Scottish politics.

There can’t have been many starker sliding-doors moments. Before the resignation there was a vast gulf between the SNP and their nearest challengers – fully 26 points in early December 2022, a fortnight before the SNP infamously steamrollered the Gender Recognition Reform Act through Parliament in a series of heated late-night sittings.

That began a slide, but after the resignation the lead collapsed entirely, and by the summer Labour were almost neck-and-neck with Humza Yousaf’s beleaguered administration, and duly almost wiped the SNP out of Westminster in July’s UK election.

Unfortunately for Labour, that led to Keir Starmer being Prime Minister and their support instantly fell off a cliff, leaving a gap into which mainly Reform but also the Greens surged. (We’ve left the Tories and Lib Dems out of the graph to keep it clean, as both of them barely moved during the period and are largely irrelevant forces.)

The Parliamentary arithmetic barely changed at the 2026 Holyrood election due to the electoral system giving the SNP a grossly disproportionate number of seats, but it’s plainly visible how much the wider political picture did. The SNP, which had only fleetingly dropped below 40% since the 2014 indyref and had peaked at 62% (a breathtaking 42 points ahead of Labour), has only momentarily brushed that line again.

As recently as two months before Sturgeon’s resignation (and for most of the preceding three years), the combined SNP and Green vote would have been enough to surpass the 50% mark in an election being used as a de-facto referendum. But the SNP did nothing, and this May that combined vote fell far short, with Unionist parties taking 60% of the ballot. When her husband was read his rights the window of opportunity closed, probably forever.

For those three years, Sturgeon knew that the Operation Branchform cat was out of the bag and that the clock was ticking. But she stalled and stalled until she ran out of time and the chance was gone. In terms of independence, the second half of that graph may as well be a flatline at zero.

Healey hinted at welfare reform in Liverpool on Monday (Alamy)

2 min read2 hr

Speaking from Liverpool on the second day of Labour Party conference, Healey said that the “core” of the budget he will deliver next month will be “fiscal discipline”.

It comes after Healey inherited a difficult economic landscape from his predecessor, with growing concerns around the costs of government borrowing and an enduring war in Iran. 

Healey told conference that the “hope” that Labour wants to bring to the country would be “earned through fiscal discipline, through good work, and through strong industries,” and he said he and the Prime Minister are “in lockstep that we will meet the fiscal rules, that we will maintain control of Britain’s finances.”

Elsewhere in the speech, Healey said: “I will bring fresh hope to build from the rock of fiscal discipline, built on a growing economy with good work and jobs in more places, built on a new age of industrialisation.”

While Healey was positive about the country’s outlook and the return to a Labour government, he said that “the money New Labour had in the 90s is simply not there now.”

Pointing to the Tories’ years in power, Healey said: “We had 14 years of flatlining Tory growth and living standards when Cameron’s austerity gutted our public services, when Johnson’s Brexit hammered our exports and Truss’s mini budget crashed the economy and collapsed confidence in Britain’s fiscal strength.”

Healey also used his speech on Monday to argue for the need for welfare reform, arguing that while the social security system “must always be there for those who can never work”, it is “not progressive to allow bigger and bigger benefits bill, and a system which offers an income but doesn’t offer a future.”

Pointing to the one million young people who are not in education, employment or training, Healey said that tackling this is “more than just an economic must. This is a moral duty.”

“I refuse to write off a million young people like the Tories have done.”

During his speech on Monday, Healey paid tribute to the former chancellor Rachel Reeves, pointing to her work on “financial discipline” and lifting the two-child benefit cap.

Healey also announced a new “local apprenticeship service” to help connect companies with young people, and said that the Government would commit to £6bn of contracts for British shipyards. 

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Andrea Egan (Photography by Tom Oldham)

11 min read23 min

When The House first met Andrea Egan last year, she was standing as an underdog in the race to determine who would become the next general secretary of Britain’s biggest union.

Although she had the advantage – unprecedented in Unison – of being a single challenger against an incumbent, only the flame-haired social worker herself was confident she would win. After all, she was neither a paid union official nor a Labour member; it would be the first time a lay member of Unison had been elected to lead it.

But lead the 1.3-million-member trade union she now does, after securing 60 per cent in the internal contest that attracted a typically low turnout of just seven per cent. At the time, it was another blow for No 10, which lost an ally in the defeated Christina McAnea – widely thought to be another casualty of Sir Keir Starmer’s unpopularity.

Egan not only defied the odds to become head of Unison but also got her wish with a new Prime Minister she favoured for the job. “I am a fan of Andy. I mean, he’s the King of the North!” as the left-winger from Bolton put it to us in November.

“He’s made a real positive start,” the trade union leader tells The House today, noting that she was “really pleased” with Burnham’s Makerfield by-election campaign. “The way he approached that election – he wanted to listen to what people wanted to say, and he was open and honest enough to say, ‘Look, the Labour Party’s made mistakes.’ At that time, it was really important for society to hear some honest politics.”

She has already met with the new Labour Prime Minister on several occasions amid No 10’s effort to step up engagement with unions. In meetings with Tulo (as the group of party-affiliated unions is known), she reports that “he acknowledged that the trade unions had been left aside in the previous couple of years”. There is a “much better commitment” now, “absolutely”, she says, and a “better working relationship”.

“It was reassuring when he said, ‘I’m going to put the trade unions back in the front and centre,’ because why would we not be? We represent the workers who are delivering the public services. And he’s kept good with that promise. He’s met us a number of times.”

The Unison general secretary warns that Burnham is “not exempt from criticism”, though is careful not to criticise his controversial pick of chancellor, despite having endorsed Ed Miliband before the decision was made. Did the John Healey appointment come as a disappointment?

“I won’t say I was disappointed,” she replies carefully. “I felt Ed, and it was all in my own personal view, his vision for where the country needed to go was OK, was good. But I’ve made clear internally and to Andy, it’s not really our role as trade unions to tell him who to put in his Cabinet. So, if he’s picked John Healey, he’s picked John Healey, and we’ve got to respect that. Listen, the real issue is whether they deliver or not.”

Healey became Chancellor after resigning as Starmer’s defence secretary over a lack of military spending, of course. Egan, on the other hand, backs the “Wages not weapons” campaign by some unions – passed as a motion by the TUC this year for a second time – to call for investment in public services rather than defence.

“Well, that was his previous position. He’s now Chancellor, and his budget requirement and options are much wider than just defence,” she points out.

Egan does not support any increase in defence spend, let alone a three per cent of GDP or higher target. Is she not persuaded by the threat of Russian aggression, the possibility of conflict with China, perhaps even the need to defend the Falklands at some point soon?

“What are you defending, if your own infrastructure is broken and this society is not a healthy society?” she asks in response, before adding: “When you look at recent wars, we’ve been in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Yemen. So, is that keeping our shores safe? We’ve got to be honest about what that money is actually being spent on.”

Nor does she accept the Westminster consensus that welfare spend needs to come down.

“Well, what is welfare spending? That’s the key question,” she says. “A big chunk of that is actually pensions, and that is deferred income for people who have already put into the pot.

“Then you’ve got to be really honest and realistic that a big chunk of our trade union membership is in these low-paid, insecure jobs, in these outsourced companies, and that low pay means they need to rely on benefits to exist. So, it’s all fictitious. Like Andy says, we’ve got to start having some very honest conversations.”

Although Egan holds back from criticising Healey directly, she is happy to make clear her view of the Home Secretary, who she says has “not even answered requests for a meeting”.

Unison wants to express its concerns over the government’s proposals to increase the time migrants will have to wait for Indefinite Leave to Remain status; the standard going up from five to 10 years, rising to 15 years for those who arrived on health and social care visas.

“That was one of my disappointments – that Shabana Mahmood was left in position, simply because of her position on the migrant workers. As yet, there’s just a wall of silence at the moment.

“I think that’s absolutely unacceptable because they make these big announcements, and what they’ve got is these hundreds of thousands of workers who are just being left on a thread at the minute, wondering where their futures lie and what’s going to happen to them and their families.”

Unison, a primarily public sector union that represents more social care workers than any other, is lobbying for changes not to apply retroactively: “It was a deal – come to the country for five years, do the work, and then you get leave to remain.”

Egan also wants their visas no longer to be tied to specific employers. “It’s got to be sector-wide,” she says. “The victimisation of those workers because you’re tied to one employer – that’s where the abuse happens… There’s a fear about raising your head and reporting them because the threat is there and it is real: ‘If you speak out, we’ll report you to Home Office, we’ll sack you’.”

Her overriding argument speaks to something fundamental – and very challenging – that Burnham wants to achieve in government: the creation of a ‘national care service’. “What I have said to Andy Burnham is, ‘You’re not going to be able to deliver that without the migrant workers.’”

And was he receptive to that message? “He nodded,” she recalls. “We were in a big meeting, and he acknowledged my statement.”

Egan, who was raised by a single mum on a Bolton estate, worked in the care sector herself; in a care home at 19, then children’s residential care. A union rep, she worked her way up, becoming manager of the unit, then convenor for children’s services, and ultimately a social worker.

“I’ve been asked by a number of ministers about me joining the Labour Party. I’ve reminded them that I didn’t leave them, they left me”

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She joined the Labour Party about 16 years ago, yet was expelled in 2022 after sharing posts by Marxist group Socialist Appeal, which was proscribed under Starmer.

Asked whether she would like back in, Egan says: “I’ve been asked by a number of ministers about me joining the Labour Party. I’ve reminded them that I didn’t leave them, they left me.

They expelled me. I’m now the leader of the biggest trade union in the country, and what I have said is, ‘You need to start behaving like a Labour Party.’”

Extraordinarily for the leader of the largest trade union, which is affiliated to the Labour Party and continues to be one of its biggest donors, she is “waiting for a number of things” before considering a fresh membership application.

“They’d have to do something that would inspire me and instil my trust again that the Labour Party can behave and deliver like the Labour Party,” she says. Has she been given assurances that she would be let in? “After four years, I can reapply anyway… So, it is a choice thing.”

In the meantime, she is allowed to attend Labour conference but not permitted entry to the main hall.

When Egan last spoke to The House, she said she would not move down to London, where Unison headquarters sits on Euston Road, if she became general secretary. That has not changed – and fortunately for her, splitting one’s time between North and South is in vogue right now.

“My husband and my son are still in Bolton. That’s my family home. But whether I need to be down in the London office, the West Midlands, Glasgow – I’ll be wherever. You only need to look at my diary. I’m all over the place.

“The same is said about how many days you work. Ideally, you’d want to be working a standard working week, wouldn’t you? But that doesn’t work out either. So, I’m just wherever I need to be.”

Egan also pledged to shun the £181,000 remuneration available to the general secretary, vowing to take only a social worker’s salary, without specifying what this figure would be. Has she been able to fulfil that pledge?

“For clarity, I’m taking a social worker’s salary, and that is within the scope of a social worker’s salary,” she replies, which suggests it may be the general average of around £40,000 but could also be much higher. She has not yet donated the remainder to Unison funds as promised; it is “sat in the account because I want to do it year-end”.

So, what will her final salary be?

“It’s a social worker’s salary,” she reiterates, unwilling to clarify. “What I will do is, I’ll publicise it at the end of the year to my membership. The only people I’m accountable to, if I’m really frank, is my membership, and you don’t say anything to your membership you’re not prepared to deliver on. So, I will deliver on that, and I will let my membership know.”

In our last interview, Egan also said she would not feel comfortable with the union representing someone like Sandie Peggie, the Fife nurse who complained about having to use the same hospital dressing room as a trans colleague. “We have members come to the union with all kinds of issues, and some of them are unreasonable, but you’ve got to unpick them,” she explained.

Has this situation arisen since she has become general secretary? “You can imagine: members come with all kinds of issues. They stole money, they’ve assaulted somebody, they’ve been accused of being racist. You don’t have to represent every single member through the rulebook because there’s some standard,” she says today.

The Supreme Court ruling on sex and gender in the Equality Act is “unworkable”, she adds, before stumbling over her words, trying to decide whether she “respects” the law as it stands.

She settles on: “You’ve got to adhere to the law. But at the same time, we absolutely will be looking at how we challenge that.”

While others favour reopening the Equality Act to change how it defines gender in light of the court ruling, Egan is not so sure. “I never said we were open to opening the Equality Act because where do you stop?” she asks. The implication is that it could open a Pandora’s box; she is deeply concerned by Reform UK’s plans to scrap the Equality Act, as well as the threat the party’s potential electoral success poses to unions.

For now, her focus is primarily on a campaign pressing the government to deliver on its manifesto promise to “bring about the biggest wave of insourcing of public services in a generation”.

Have the unions involved figured out how much the insourcing they proposed would cost upfront? “Work is being done, but our bottom line is really clear: it would pale into significance to what’s already been lost through the public purse.”

Egan is “loving” her new job. “I feel more optimistic than I did last year. I feel more excited than I did last year because I’m now – I mean, that was an historic win,” she says.

“I’m a working-class woman. A working-class woman from a town who has always felt that my position as a council employee, as a trade unionist, as a community member, are connected. It’s all for the good of.

“I did say this to Keir Starmer before he left: ‘Listen, I’m not an oppositionist for the sake of it, because if you win, we win, society wins.’ I think that’s where we’re at now. We’ve got one opportunity for really trying to get us back to a better place.” 

Madonna opened the show by bringing her Confessions II short film to life on stage – vagina lasers and all

There was the slightest of technical hitches during Madonna’s performance involving some playback which… yeah

Country megastar Kacey Musgraves paid a beautiful tribute to Dolly Parton with her take on I Will Always Love You

A host of stars paid homage to George Michael in the lead-up to the 10th anniversary of his death, including queer performers like Adam Lambert and the UK’s own MNEK

Gener8ion and Yung Lean’s Storm II performance recreated their iconic music video’s jaw-dropping choreo

Lisa absolutely served with her rendition of Sawadika

Considering how far they’ve both come in their careers, we loved watching former collaborators (and homegrown stars!) Raye and Charli XCX hanging out at the VMAs

As for the night’s awards, Madonna came out on top, including an Artist Of The Year win presented to her by collaborator Charli XCX and Troye Sivan (who recently sampled the Queen of Pop’s number one hit Music on his new single Party)

Madonna and Sabrina Carpenter also won Best Collaboration and their shared speech was a little… bumpy, let’s just say that

British singer-songwriter Sienna Spiro became the latest winner of the Best New Artist title, recently won by the likes of Doja Cat, Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan (not to mention historic winners like Eminem, Lady Gaga, Nirvana and Eurythmics)

Taylor Swift also took a moment to remember ‘the ultimate showgirl’ Dolly Parton as she accepted her latest Video Of The Year win

Lucy Powell has accused Nigel Farage of hypocrisy over immigration, telling Labour conference that he “seems to hate foreigners so much” but “really does love their money”.

In her first conference speech as deputy leader, Powell described the Reform UK leader as “a modern-day love child of Enoch Powell and Margaret Thatcher”.

The education secretary said: “Nigel Farage wants us to all blame immigrants for our country’s ills. He wants a race to the bottom on workers’ rights and deregulation. Especially for his billionaire crypto mates. He believes in trickle-down economics, that never actually trickles down.

“Conference, he’s just a modern-day love child of Enoch Powell and Margaret Thatcher. And quite bizarrely, for someone who seems to hate foreigners so much, he really does love their money, doesn’t he?”

Enoch Powell delivers ‘rivers of blood’ speech

Powell also turned her fire on the Conservatives, saying they appear to be “somewhere between an identity crisis and collective amnesia”. She told delegates the British people “won’t forget the damage they did in 14 years of government. They left this country worse off, our public services hollowed out, and now they’ve got the nerve to lecture us on the crises they created.”

She said: “Our opponents are locked in the arguments of the past, while we look to the future. And that’s how we’ll win, and I am confident there’s a majority in this country who agree.”

Powell acknowledged Labour’s poor performance at the 2026 May elections, telling delegates: “We lost hundreds of great Labour representatives across the UK. There’s no sugar-coating it. We let you down and you deserved better. And I’m sorry.”

She argued that the party had been “diligently getting on with the job” but must now “make the argument and win it”. Praising the leadership of prime minister Andy Burnham, she said he was “showing us the why, not just the what”.

Powell pointed to a list of government achievements, including free school meals for more than 3 million children, recognising the state of Palestine, lifting of the two-child benefit cap and ending hereditary peers sitting in the House of Lords.

Turning to her brief at the Department for Education, Powell described education as “the passport to success” and said she led “the department of hope”.

She said: “We’re introducing new vocational GCSEs alongside T Levels and V Levels and new apprenticeships post 16.

“High quality, high esteem, underpinned by national standards in subjects in demand for the future economy. I’m ending the snobbery towards technical education.

“Not a two-tier system, far from it, but technical excellence alongside academic excellence too.”

Powell also took a swipe at former education secretary Michael Gove, who she said had accused her of “bringing back stupid”.

She said: “Michael Gove wants all the plaudits for the good bits but wants to take no responsibility for the bad. I think Ofsted would say he Requires Improvement. Although of course under the new framework he’d need attention. Let’s not give him anymore of that because he loves it too much.

“We’re not bringing back stupid, conference – we’re bringing back hope.”

Angela Rayner resigns as deputy prime minister over tax row

NESST – photo courtesy of Northumbria University

For decades, governments have promised to tackle the North-South divide. Yet despite numerous initiatives, too many communities have continued to see investment, opportunity and economic power concentrated elsewhere.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s commitment to the reindustrialisation of the North is built on a simple but powerful principle: “good growth in every postcode.”

It is an ambition that goes beyond economic statistics. It recognises that successful places are built on confidence, skills, educational opportunity and community as much as they are on investment and jobs.

A vision already taking place across the North East

To be clear, reindustrialisation is not about recreating the industries of the past. It is about creating the industries of the future and ensuring that regions with the talent, capability and ambition to succeed are given the opportunity to do so.

The North East region has long been one of Britain’s industrial powerhouses, defined by generations of engineering and manufacturing excellence. Today, it is building a new future around advanced manufacturing, defence, technology and space – sectors that will be critical to the UK’s future economic prosperity and national security.

Few sectors demonstrate this opportunity more clearly than space.

Lockheed Martin Space UK – which has had a presence in the UK for 85 years – has already made a significant impact in the region through its partnership with Northumbria University and the UK Space Agency to create the North East Space Skills and Technology Centre (NESST). The initiative combines industry expertise with academic excellence to develop the technology, innovation and talent pipeline needed to support the UK’s growing space economy.

NESST embodies the collaborative approach that successful reindustrialisation requires. The centre brings together industry, government and education while creating clear pathways into high-value careers for local people.

The company’s commitment to the region could soon expand further through plans for a satellite manufacturing facility at NETPark near Sedgefield, one of the UK’s leading science and technology campuses.

Investing for the future, today

Importantly, the North East is not simply preparing for future investment. It is ready today.

Paul Livingston, Chief Executive UK and NATO for Lockheed Martin said:

“The North East has the talent, ambition and industrial heritage to play a leading role in Britain’s reindustrialisation. By bringing together industry, academia and government, we can create highly skilled jobs and help deliver growth and opportunity across the region.”

More than £20m has already been invested in preparing NETPark for advanced manufacturing opportunities, creating a development-ready location for companies seeking to establish cutting-edge facilities. Combined with the region’s engineering expertise, growing technology ecosystem and strong infrastructure, the foundations for a thriving space manufacturing cluster are already in place.

The skills pipeline is equally compelling. NESST is due to open shortly, with the first cohort of 30 students beginning a new aerospace-focused degree programme designed to equip the next generation of engineers and technologists with the skills required by the UK’s growing space sector.

Such an investment would represent a major boost not only for the North East but for the UK’s ambitions in space and advanced manufacturing. It would directly support the Prime Minister’s objective of creating a North that can manufacture, innovate, export and compete on the global stage.

Championing the future

The company’s confidence in the region is shared by North East Mayor Kim McGuinness, who has consistently championed both the defence and space sectors as engines of future prosperity.

Her argument is simple. The North East already possesses the industrial capability, workforce and determination required to succeed. What it needs is greater investment and the opportunity to compete.

Kim McGuinness, Mayor of the North East, said:

“For too long, too much investment has been concentrated in too few places. But we have a plan to show what is possible when global industry backs the people of the North East.

“Becoming home to this major Lockheed Martin Space UK manufacturing facility would be transformational for our region. Not only would it create high-value jobs and opportunities for people in Durham and across the North East, it would also help to attract further investment, suppliers, innovators and space businesses to locate here. That is how we build a globally recognised space cluster and deliver lasting economic growth for communities across our region.”

That shared ambition led to the recent Memorandum of Understanding between the North East Mayoral Strategic Authority and Lockheed Martin Space UK, strengthening collaboration around investment, skills and industrial development.

The case for investment is strengthened further when viewed through the lens of national security.

As highlighted by the MP for Newcastle Central and West, Chi Onwurah, the North East sends more young people into the Armed Forces than any other region of the UK and yet receives the lowest level of Ministry of Defence spending.

That disparity presents an opportunity as much as a challenge. As the UK seeks to strengthen sovereign capabilities, increase resilience and invest in the industries that support national security, the North East offers a region with a proven record of service, a highly skilled workforce and infrastructure that is ready to support future growth.

Investment in defence and space would not simply support economic growth. It would strengthen national resilience while ensuring that a region which contributes so much to the nation’s defence benefits more directly from the opportunities created by that commitment.

Kim McGuinness, Mayor of the North East, continued:

“The scale of the opportunity is substantial. Plans include approximately £100m of investment and the potential creation of up to 2,000 new jobs across the UK, including around 500 highly skilled roles in the North East. These positions would support satellite manufacturing, advanced engineering, technology development and supply chain growth while helping strengthen the UK’s sovereign space capability.

Supporting that growth will require a strong pipeline of talent. Encouragingly, that work is already underway.”

Establishing the educational pipeline

New College Durham recently secured designation as an Advanced Manufacturing Technical Excellence College (AMTEC), further strengthening the region’s ability to develop the advanced engineering and manufacturing skills required by future employers.

Alison Maynard, Deputy Principal at New College Durham said that “we see AMTEC playing a vital role in connecting and integrating the North East’s rich industrial, research, and innovation assets, creating a bridge between major developments such as NESST and Lockheed Martin’s planned facility at NETPark.”

Together, initiatives such as NESST, AMTEC and NETPark demonstrate that the North East has already assembled many of the ingredients required for long-term success: investment, infrastructure, innovation, skills and collaboration.

For a Prime Minister committed to delivering growth in every postcode, the North East offers a compelling example of what success can look like.

The region is not waiting for growth to arrive. It is creating it.

Through advanced manufacturing, space technology, education and strategic investment, the North East is demonstrating how reindustrialisation can strengthen the economy, support national resilience and create opportunity for future generations. The infrastructure is ready. The skills pipeline is growing. The partnerships are in place.

The future is being built now.