𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Nobody is running the country. If there was any doubt, a minor act of rebellion by a Government Minister made it clear this week that the UK is a rudderless ship. The Government’s big announcement was the long-awaited Defence Investment Plan. Sir Keir Starmer announced a £15 billion increase in military spending, bringing the defence budget to £80bn a year by 2029.

How will it be paid for? Well, he only offered a partial explanation – which we will return to. But Sir Keir did say: “Some capital projects – for example on roads and energy, which are important but not immediately vital, will no longer go ahead as planned.” It prompted an angry response from foreign office minister Hamish Falconer, the Labour MP for Lincoln, who published a letter complaining that a local road scheme was under threat.

Good for him, you might say. He was sticking up for his constituents.

But as a government minister, you are supposed to be bound by collective responsibility. You’re meant to support the Prime Minister and his announcements, at least in public, and that includes decisions about how to spend the limited amount of money available to the Treasury – even if it goes on defence when you’d prefer it to be spent on transport.

I’m not criticising Mr Falconer. I’m saying that in normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have behaved this way. And if he did, he would have been fired from the Government.

But he can currently do what he likes. There isn’t any collective responsibility because Sir Keir is Prime Minister in name only. And what would be the point of sacking Mr Falconer?

Unless something extremely unexpected happens, Andy Burnham will become Prime Minister on July 20 and appoint his own ministers. If you are an ambitious Labour MP, you need to start sucking up to Andy. Nobody cares about Keir Starmer any more.

We have two more weeks of this. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch had fun during PMQs in the House of Commons this week, as she asked Sir Keir Starmer what Mr Burnham thought about the big issues of the day.

It was the only question that mattered, but Sir Keir, of course, couldn’t answer it. He looked pretty unhappy.

Sir Keir will be at the NATO summit in Turkey next week, so it seems he only has one more PMQs to go, on Wednesday July 15, You have to wonder if he’ll be glad when it’s all over.

Having said that, the outgoing Prime Minister has left a nice big unexploded bomb for his successor. He announced a £15bn defence funding increase – but explained only how £10.3bn of it will be paid for. The remaining £4.7bn will be found at the next Budget, supposedly.

That means Mr Burnham and his new Chancellor will have to magic up the money. Will they slash benefits? Are there more transport schemes to cancel, perhaps? All we know is that it’s their problem now.

Meanwhile, Mr Burnham has upset the media by he delivering his first speech since winning the Makerfield by-election – in other words, the first speech about his plans for running the country – while banning the journalists in attendance from asking questions.

The decision was praised by some, with Tony Blair’s former spin doctor Alastair Campbell calling it a “good move” and declaring “the speech itself is more important”.

New governments always attempt to sideline the Lobby, which is the name given to journalists reporting on politics from Westminster. Mr Burnham isn’t quite in government yet, but he will be very soon.

But they change their tune when it all starts going wrong and they feel power slipping away. At some point, Mr Burnham will be all sweetness and light when dealing with journalists. The question is how long it will take him to reach that stage.

He, or his PR team, also did something very strange at the press conference. They gave the more senior journalists – people with titles like Political Editor – seats in the hall where Mr Burnham was speaking.

If your job title was less impressive – such as Deputy Political Editor – you were ordered to sit upstairs in a balcony and watch from a distance.

It was a pointless and rather petty way to behave, and one likely to annoy people. Yes, some people in a workplace are more senior than others but that’s between them and their employer. It’s none of Team Andy’s business.

If there really wasn’t enough room for everyone in the main hall, it would be fine to allocate seats on a first come, first served basis.