1. Immigration and asylum: keeping the pressure on

The asylum debate remains a major focus, with coverage of proposed accommodation for asylum seekers near Piddington and Bicester, residents’ concerns and calls for tougher action. The Daily Express framed local objections around whether women were being listened to, while the wider debate has included proposals from Reform UK to suspend the asylum system for five years.

2. Tax, spending and the case for a smaller state

With the Chancellor’s Budget approaching on 28 October, arguments about taxation, welfare and business costs are intensifying. The Sun has attacked the prospect of further tax rises and argued for welfare cuts, while business groups have called for changes to employer National Insurance to encourage recruitment.

3. Andy Burnham under sustained political attack

The Sun‘s 15 October editorial attacked Burnham over sluggish economic growth, welfare reform, his dealings with Manchester City executives and the prospect of tourist taxes. The Daily Mail has also pursued questions about his relationship with the club’s ownership. They are so ratteld by Labour’s improvement in the polls they’re doing all they can to smear him.

4. Culture-war issues remain part of the agenda

On 16 October, the Daily Mail led with criticism of government proposals to improve pupils’ speaking skills.

Rather than welcoming the improvement, promoted by Lucy Powell, which aims to reform the national curriculum so that verbal fluency and communication skills are embedded alongside traditional academic subjects, the Mail is having a meltdown.

5. The future of the Telegraph and media ownership

On 16 October, Reuters reported that the UK government had cleared Axel Springer’s planned acquisition of Telegraph Media Group from a further competition investigation. This is a significant development for the ownership of one of Britain’s most influential right-leaning newspaper groups.

Why it matters: newspaper ownership affects the long-term institutional landscape in which political arguments are produced. The immediate question is what the change means for editorial independence, newsroom priorities and the paper’s future direction.

The blogs, campaign groups and think tanks behind the headlines

The newspaper stories are only one part of the picture. Campaign organisations and policy institutes help develop the arguments, statistics and proposals that can subsequently enter political debate and media coverage.

TaxPayers’ Alliance — welfare and the public finances

The organisation’s recent output includes a report arguing that Britain’s fiscal problems are worse than those of the 1970s, a critique of tax rises and constituency-level analysis of benefit spending. Its 12 October material claimed benefit costs had risen faster than median pay in 502 of 526 constituencies across England and Wales.

The argument to watch: welfare spending is becoming unaffordable and tax increases risk undermining growth.

The questions to ask: which benefits are included, how the figures are calculated, whether higher spending reflects inflation or increased need, and how the proposed alternatives would affect household incomes.

Read: TaxPayers’ Alliance blog  · Fiscal policy report 

Migration Watch UK — immigration and border control

Campaign and research organisation

Migration Watch’s recent commentary has returned to the question of whether the post-Brexit immigration system has delivered meaningful control over migration. Its September analysis, Ten Years Since Brexit, We Still Have Not Taken Back Control, questions the record on immigration numbers.

The argument to watch: governments have failed to deliver the immigration controls promised after Brexit.

The questions to ask: are the figures about net migration, work visas, asylum applications or settlement? These measure different things, and a claim about one should not automatically be treated as a claim about all the others.

Read: Migration Watch UK blogs 

Policy Exchange — the policy development pipeline

Policy institute · Public services and the economy

Policy Exchange’s recent publications include The Rural Penalty, examining how NHS funding formulas affect rural and coastal communities, and Legislating for Candour?, published on 14 October. Its broader programme addresses productivity, housing, healthcare and regulatory reform.

The argument to watch: how institutional reform, changes to public-service delivery and economic restructuring might improve outcomes.

The questions to ask: what evidence supports each proposed reform, who gains or loses from it, and whether the analysis adequately accounts for regional inequalities.

This newsletter is produced with the assistance AI

The post What are the Right-Wing press and think tanks up to this week? appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

“Why this is the beginning of the end for Zack Polanski,” reads the headline of a comment piece in the Independent, which goes on to outline how yesterday’s by-election was “a crushing defeat” for the Greens. Several outlets are reporting that the Green Party leader intends to stay on at its helm, as though he is on his way out the door. But just how close was the vote? 

​​To put the by-election into context, it is a Labour stronghold, which the party has held since 1983 when the seat was created. Before that, it was Holborn and St Pancras South, which Labour held since 1950, apart from a five-year period where it had a Conservative MP.

The likelihood that Labour would secure a win was therefore high. However, Labour’s vote share in the seat has fallen in the last three elections. In 2019, Keir Starmer’s vote share was shaved by 5.6%. At the 2024 election, it went down by a further 17.4%. This time around, Abdi-Wali won 45.2% of the vote, which is 3.7 points down on Labour’s vote compared to 2024.

Meanwhile, the Greens have steadily increased their vote share in the last two elections, with Polanski winning 33% of the vote yesterday. This is despite him and his party battling highly negative coverage after the Zionism is Racism motion passed at the party’s conference over the weekend. It is also despite Labour enjoying a ‘bounce’ in the polls after Andy Burnham took control of the party in July.

Labour won by 3,364 votes, but turnout was very low. Voter turnout dropped from 54.1% in the 2024 general election to 38.8% yesterday. 

The Greens vote share went up by 22.4 percentage points. Some of that increase was in part due Andrew Feinstein, who stood as an Independent candidate at the last election, deciding not to stand this time around.

As Professor of Political Science, Rob Ford, outlined on Sky News this morning, there is also evidence to suggest that some Green voters went back to Labour due to Burnham’s leftward shift on Gaza and his more radical proposals on housing and the cost-of-living.

“So it feels like the party has shifted wholesale in the direction of where the Greens were,” Ford said, adding that Labour is using the strategy to “close down” the Greens, who they were under threat from.

Despite some evidence of voters drifting back to Labour, to characterise yesterday’s by-election result as “a crushing defeat” for Polanski is to hone in on the loss without looking at the numbers. Labour held a seat where it was always the favourite to win, but on a reduced vote share and amid a low turnout.

The Greens, meanwhile, increased their share of the vote amid negative media coverage. For Polanski to now describe Holborn and St Pancras as “a marginal seat” might be a bit of a stretch, but it certainly isn’t the safe Labour seat it once was.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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On Wednesday, Andy Burnham committed another £102 million in funding to provide homeless people with emergency accommodation this winter, stating that he wants “to get everyone in for Christmas”.

This builds on Burnham’s first pledge as prime minister. In his first speech as prime minister, he said he would end rough sleeping for good and committed £340 million towards making good on that pledge.

Yet, Farage doesn’t seem to support this commitment. In a Telegraph story published on Wednesday night, the Reform leader said that helping homeless people would ‘advertise’ to migrants that you get “everything for free if you come by boat”.

Reform uses populist rhetoric about putting “British people first”. Yet, Farage has criticised this policy to help homeless people, and his party has said it would cut benefits for disabled people if it wins power.

The article also argues that a report published by the Centre for Social Justice, the right-wing think tank co-founded by Iain Duncan Smith, revealed that half of rough sleepers on London’s streets in 2025-26 were migrants.

However, the figures lack important context. Migrants with No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) are unable to access state benefits, statutory homelessness assistance, or council housing, which can leave them with no choice but to sleep on the streets.

Rather than demonstrating that providing emergency accommodation “attracts” migrants, it shows what happens when they have no safety net. 

Reacting to Farage’s comments, Jenni Regan, CEO of charity IMIX, which works to improve how migration is covered in the media, said: “This is a familiar move, taking two separate issues and welding them together to stoke fear, and it does nothing to help a single person sleeping rough this winter. 

Regan added: “The claim doesn’t stand up: people going through the asylum system are housed by the Home Office, not by councils, and have no recourse to public funds, so they cannot access council housing or statutory homelessness support. 

“People do not sleep rough, or cross the Channel, because of a housing announcement, they do it out of desperation. Everyone, including those genuinely worried about housing pressures, is better served by a debate grounded in facts than one driven by fear.”

In summary, it is misleading to claim that emergency housing “attracts” asylum seekers when they are unable to access it. Instead, migrants can be at greater risk of rough sleeping because they cannot access benefits or statutory homelessness assistance.

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

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While many of the same MPs remained at the top table, Burnham also brought back his allies Lucy Powell, as well as Louise Haigh and Angela Rayner, both of whom had been forced to resign from Keir Starmer’s government. Haigh over a historic fraud conviction and Rayner over the underpayment of stamp duty.

Burnham ejected the obvious Starmer loyalists, such as Rachel Reeves – although he did still offer her defence secretary, which she declined – Steve Reed, Darren Jones, Liz Kendall, Peter Kyle. Aside from that, the overall composition of the cabinet looked reasonably similar to Starmer’s. 

Was Burnham overly cautious with his appointments?

“Andy Burnham won’t be as powerful ever again as he was yesterday [on Monday], so he had a real opportunity to remake the government,” Tim Oliver, a lecturer in British politics and public policy at the University of Manchester told Left Foot Forward. 

Oliver doesn’t think Burnham “wasted” the opportunity, but adds, “he could have made a lot more of it”. He also stated that while he can understand some of Burnham’s individual appointments, “in terms of coherence as a political project, it’s a mixed bag”. 

Labour’s hardline immigration policies.. To be continued

One area where Burnham could have been bolder was with his decision to keep Shabana Mahmood as Home Secretary. The move indicates that his government will continue to pursue the controversial immigration policies associated with Starmer’s government. There had been hope among Labour MPs that if Burnham had made Mahmood chancellor, they might have been able to scrap her stricter rules on indefinite leave to remain. Now, it’s not clear how backbench opposition to her reforms will play out.

In addition, analysis by political scientists indicates that Labour’s anti-immigration stance doesn’t help them either maintain support among their progressive base or win over anti-migration voters. 

In the 2024 general election, Labour’s voter coalition was “broadly, softly, pro-migration”, Oliver adds.

He argues that instead of keeping Mahmood, Burnham could have put in a home secretary “who’s going to spend all their time talking about crime”, while vowing to focus on issues such as phone scammers and reforming the police. 

Bridget Phillipson’s promotion from women and equalities minister to Secretary of State also sends a message that Burnham’s government will continue to pursue its previous policies on single-sex spaces. As women and equalities minister under Starmer, Phillipson drafted the code on making use of single-sex spaces based on biological sex, a policy that risks discriminating against trans people.

The government decided to create the code in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling in April 2025 that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex.

Less good appointments

Burnham’s decision to keep Lisa Nandy as culture secretary has also raised eyebrows. Oliver says “One joke I saw on Blue Sky was ‘Does Lisa Nandy know she is secretary for culture, media and sport?’”. He equally questioned the rationale for Burnham appointing Yvette Cooper as health and social care secretary.

“I’m not aware of a lot of people going ‘she was a really effective home secretary and then a really effective foreign secretary’,” Oliver said.

“Especially if you want to make fixing social care one of your topline priorities,” he added. 

Appointments that ‘make sense’

In what was something of a surprise appointment, Burnham made John Healey chancellor. Oliver argued that there was “too much huffing and puffing” about how the bond markets would react if Ed Miliband had got the job, adding “what the bond markets don’t like is that the UK has a very high debt to GDP ratio”.

Nonetheless, he says that his appointment of Healey makes sense, as Burnham “wanted a safe pair of hands to run the treasury” and “leeway to have more say over economic policy”. 

Another appointment that made sense was Miliband being made foreign secretary. “Burnham says he wants to spend less time on foreign policy, so you need someone who carries a lot of weight”, which Miliband does as he is like “an elder statesman”, Oliver remarks.

Miliband is also aligned with Labour changing its policy on Israel’s war on Gaza, which Burnham alluded to when he recently apologised for Labour’s initial response to Israel’s military action in Gaza and said the party “didn’t get right”. 

Good choice!

In terms of good appointments, Oliver said he viewed Angela Rayner being brought back as the Secretary of State for housing, communities and local government as a strong move, as she is “a political heavyweight”, she has experience and has got Burnham’s back. Rayner’s brief also includes devolution, which Burnham has made a core focus of his government. 

By appointing Miatta Fahnbulleh — who did a lot of work on shaping the government’s Warm Homes plan alongside Ed Miliband — as energy and net zero secretary, Burnham has signalled that his government intends to continue pursuing the net zero agenda.

Burnham’s appointment of Haigh could also be an effective one, Oliver argues. She is an ally of Burnham’s, and as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, will be Burnham’s “fixer” in government. She will also be able to go out and work on things that the prime minister doesn’t have time to focus on. As a former cabinet minister, Haigh has “got an idea of how the Whitehall machine works and could be quite an effective appointment”. 

No wild cards

The new prime minister’s cabinet is a mixed bag. There aren’t many wild cards in it, which, in some ways, is a positive thing, and there’s a wealth of veteran experience across the team. However, the lack of new faces and MPs on the left of the party suggests Burnham’s Labour might not be heading in a radically different direction to Starmer’s. 

On the other hand, Burnham may intend to drive change across all departments himself while keeping greater control over the government’s overall direction. 

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward

The post ‘He could have made a lot more of it’: An analysis of Andy Burnham’s cabinet picks appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.