Some are more equal than others

Andy Burnham is terribly worried about inequality but happily he seems to be a subsistence-level would-be Prime Minister, according to the Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s spending for the first quarter of the year.

To most of us, subsistence probably means scraping by on the breadline but not to the Labour candidate for Makerfield.

Under the heading ‘subsistence’ we find two ‘Lunch In The City’ payments of £1,410 and £693 (curiously, a Stockport company called Lunch in the City, which supplied ‘boardroom buffets’, went bust two years ago).

A subsistence payment of £1,319.66 went to The Monastery, which boasts The Andy Burnham Café, and £3,576 of ‘subsistence’ was paid to Marketing Manchester.

Meanwhile Mr Burnham’s authority is still using private transport pretty freely. Two payments for taxis totalling £1,300 don’t compare with the £13,275 spent with Prestige Chauffeurs Ltd, maintaining the authority’s £1,000-a-week luxury limo habit. Nothing's too good for the workers.

Then there’s all the good causes. The Labour Party's favourite think-tank the Institute for Public Policy Research was paid £33,333 in March while large sums went to all those magnificent charities which make our cities so vibrant at such modest cost to the public purse.

For instance, the Big Life Group got a little over £900,000 to carry on ‘fighting for equity in health, in wealth and in life’. That is dwarfed by the £4.47 million paid between January and March to the Growth Company, which aims to achieve ‘high value, sustainable and inclusive growth of people, business and places’.

Then there’s Streetgames UK (£123,000) which is ‘on a mission to bring sport to young people’s doorsteps’, Greater Together Manchester (£69,000) who ‘identify the causes and consequences of poverty, listening to communities and those with lived experience’ and Community Led Initiatives (£204,000) who ‘believe everyone deserves to feel valued, to be happy, to belong’.

Inevitably there’s £49,000 for the LGBT Foundation: ‘We’re not just a charity—we’re a community who all believe that LGBTQ+ people deserve safety, hope and joy.’ The foundation also ‘facilitates’ Mayor Burnham’s LGBTQ+ advisory panel. Perhaps this is the source of his confusion about what constitutes a woman.

Obviously vast sums are spent on consultants of one sort or another as well as the regular fees for agency staff (why can none of these organisations recruit and retain people?) along with 29 payments totalling £158,000 to recipients whose names are redacted.

As a caring employer, Mayor Burnham – a former Health Secretary – has spent over £170,000 on private medical treatment for his staff, including £4,700 on counselling and psychotherapy. As they used to say (but it’s probably not allowed any more): You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps.

Andy Burnham issues furious 1,500-word response to Tony Blair attack | Politics | News | Express.co.uk

Hello Snowflake

As a lifelong music fan with zero musical talent I was interested to hear how easy it is to make a song using AI. So I thought I’d give it a go.

It took ten minutes to write some words, five minutes to find the right website and about ten seconds to turn the words into a song.

The frightening thing is that it sounds quite good. If this is the future, we’re all doomed. Have a listen…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKwvpRSnzZgt