Andy Burnham’s speech. I listened to it. I thought it was probably one of the best oratorical performances from a Prime Minister I’ve heard in the last 20 years. He actually made it seem like he cares, I think he probably does. He actually showed empathy which the right keep telling us is weak and should be discarded. He actually came out with some decent ideas although the devil will be in the detail.

Electoral reform; will that mean proportional representation?  Looks like it. Marvellous.

Delinking electricity prices from wholesale gas prices; great that should genuinely reduce electricity bills by benefiting from cheaper renewable energy. 

A National Care System; brilliant, we have an ageing population and don’t seem to want to welcome migrant workers to help with that or many other workforce challenges. 

Rejoining the EU; or some positive moves in that direction, maybe a referendum, super, about time, Brexit has and will continue to be a disaster. 

Reform the State Pension; probably needed at this stage, but going to be a hot potato. 

Housing reform; brill, let’s tackle greedy developers and get more affordable and social housing.

Take water companies into public ownership and create a publicly owned Great British Grid to challenge the private network operators; can we do this very quickly please, especially with the water companies. Privatisation, Thatcher’s legacy, has been another disaster.

A more rapid transition to renewable energy; great, get on with it, and whilst you’re at it stop subsidising oil and gas companies and make them pay for a just transition in terms of energy generation and jobs, and make them pay compensation for the damage they’ve done, deaths caused, and clean up operations.

But…

What about taxing the super rich, a wealth tax, nothing on that meanwhile the poverty divide is growing, we’re getting more multimillionaires and billionaires, and society is sick because of them.

What about the climate and nature crises and the threats these present to our national security, food supplies, flood resilience and wellbeing. And you’re allowing homes to be built on floodplains, madness. We’re facing growing risks to food supplies and prices from El Niño, extreme heat, drought, floods and harvest failures. What are you going to do about that? If people don’t have food to feed themselves and their families then law and order quickly breaks down.

What about oceans accumulating extraordinary amounts of heat, with vast areas experiencing marine heatwaves and some regions releasing stored heat back into the atmosphere? Oceans are acidifying, rivers are polluted, fish stocks are declining, and sea levels rising.

Meanwhile, on land wildfires are raging, the Amazon rainforest is at a tipping point and at risk of  turning into savannah then potentially desert, along with the world’s other major rainforests such as the Congo. The Boreal forests that stretch across land masses in the Northern hemisphere aren’t faring much better. We’re in an insect apocalypse – there go our pollinators. And if we’re talking about the UK we’re one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world.

I created a Global Risk Register for a blog a couple of weeks ago, you can view it here – https://selfpropelled.life/2026/09/17/mad-world/

What about the war crimes Israel are perpetrating in Gaza and the West Bank? Trivial sanctions on goods from the West Bank aren’t going to do much. Many genocide scholars, including several from Israel, and Amnesty are calling it genocide. Israel’s actions meet the criteria for genocide. Here’s a reminder from the UN website:

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

Article II

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

• Killing members of the group;
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
• Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
• Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
• Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Source: https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition

Several of those acts have been extensively documented. The crucial legal question is whether they are being committed with the required intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, in whole or in part. In my view, the evidence of that intent is overwhelming.

We just need the International Court of Justice to catch up and the International Criminal Court to arrest the perpetrators. There is no doubt in my mind that history, if there is anyone alive to read it, will show a genocide is taking place. The first live-streamed genocide in human history.

And the UK government is, in my view and the view of many others, complicit because we are selling them arms, giving them intelligence, and haven’t imposed proper sanctions on Israel. Andy Burnham won’t even accuse them of war crimes, no doubt because then legally he would have to do something about it. Meanwhile, over 75k dead, including over 20k children. 

We have lost our humanity to the greed and whims of billionaires and their lackeys – on war, climate, nature, energy, the media, even the judiciary. Burnham’s government is still arresting hundreds of people for holding up cardboard signs opposing genocide. The average age and gender of a ‘terrorist’ in the UK must be female, early 60s. Brilliant. Something to be very proud of Labour and Tory MPs.

What about banning politicians from lying in Parliament? What about holding the media to account and demanding they tell the truth? What about getting the BBC to actually do its job and be journalists, not commentators failing to challenge politicians and business leaders on their falsehoods? What about standing up to the far right and fascism in the 21st century?

What about being honest with the public about the challenges we’re facing, why things are going to have to change – for everyone – and bringing us on that journey. If you explain why there are certain things we can’t do or have anymore, because to do so increases the risk of your children dying, people will probably get it. 

Do what is right, not what you think will get you votes, and if you can’t do that hand over decision making to Citizens’ Assemblies – the subject of my blog last week – https://selfpropelled.life/2026/09/22/what-if-politicians-didnt-make-the-decisions/

Was Andy Burnham’s speech good? Sure, it sounded cool. Was it radical, ending neoliberalism and forming a National Care Service? Nah, I don’t think so. Maybe 30 years ago. But now the things he’s proposing should have already been done, or are just what we should be doing as business as usual, not radical.

As it is we are facing multiple concurrent risks and issues that could lead, are already leading in some instances, or will lead to:

• Food and water insecurity
• Health impacts and increased mass mortality events
• Homes and infrastructure damage and destruction
• Supply chain disruption
• Insurance and property risk
• Price and livelihood shocks
• Inequality and vulnerability
• Displacement and increased migration across borders
• Economic and financial stress

These lead to systemic risks, and potentially societal collapse. 

I’d say the latter is looking more and more likely. Yesterday, Burnham should have declared a state of emergency to tackle these issues, and encouraged other world leaders to do the same.

Who knows, trying to stop societal collapse and provide a future for children might be something everyone, aside from perhaps sociopathic billionaires, can get behind.

Here’s a picture of a recent Norfolk sunset, because red sky at night, shepherd’s delight.