The Sunday Ishmael: 27/09/2026

 Conference season in full swing, with Andy Burnham delighting everyone by telling us how much he loves being Prime Minister. Because, Laura, it is for the people, I love being Prime Minister so I can create change for the people. Yes, Prime Minister, but which people? And what sort of change? Because we've not been too chuffed with the kind of change already perpetrated on the people.

Here's Andy, in his contact lenses, skipping along and holding firmly onto Mrs Burnham - she of the very strange dress sense. Is that an enormous purple pretend-leather skirt she's wearing? Why? A bit chilly in Liverpool's conference centre? Here's a close-up of the happy couple

No, really, that's a bit much. There's too much of this slop in public life.

Stop it, mrs ishmael. It is too, too upsetting - ed.

I warned you - just cut it out.

Ok. Back to Mr and Mrs Burnham. She's just given up her job to support Andy in being Prime Minister. Honest, not invent. That, presumably, is why he is clutching her hand. She is his support person.

Mrs. Burnham, aka Ms van Heel, 56, has worked for Be.EV, a Manchester-based electric vehicle charging network since 2024. Greater things have called her, however, and she went with Andy to the UN general assembly in New York where she held meetings with the Dwarf Zelensky's wife, Olena, and Diana Carney, wife of the Canadian prime minister. And she went to a lunch hosted by Melania Trump. Soft power, eh, girls? And purpleleather skirts.

Back to Conference. Everyone is happy that Starmer's been defenestrated and that Andy Northern will win them another election. Hah. That depends, dear boy, on events. All very well you snuggling up to your low IQ backbenchers with promises that "National security cannot come at the expense of social security". Neat little soundbite. But, maybe, just maybe, it should. If we have no defence capability then another, better armed and more belligerent nation unconcerned with welfare but utterly committed to warfare, might decide that now is the time to snap up Britain and be buggered to the triple lock pension, and the 6.9 million people on disability benefits out of a total population of 69.5 million people. 

Burnham's Big Idea for Conference is to sort out social care by setting up a national social care service, on the same lines as the national health service - free at the point of need, the whole nation sharing the costs of someone's grandad's care home. Given the Labour Backbenchers' visceral rejection of means testing, presumably this means additional taxation to fund the care needs of those well able to afford it, but reluctant to do so as they want to leave their nest egg to their own progeny and want me, the taxpayer, to pay up.

 Burnham has cited the success of the Scottish care system, where personal care is free. What he does not mention is that personal care - the hands on, dirty stuff, is free, but everything else costs. Hotel costs, rent, domestic tasks, shopping, gardening etc. A care home in Scotland costs as much as a care home in England, despite these "free" personal care tasks. And the local authority book keepers take great care to ensure that anything that can be charged for, is charged for.  The bed blocking in Scottish hospitals is caused in part by relatives reluctant to get their fit family member out of the hospital and into the care home because the care home costs money and the hospital is free. That is the bit that needs reforming. The NHS side of the equation. Charge for the beds, the laundry, the cleaning, the food, the potted plants, the heating, the water and the rates in the same way that care homes do. Disincentivise long stay bed blocking. Provide medical care free, but charge for the rest. Scotland's system is in utter chaos - last year they abandoned their expensive plans to create a joint  Health and Care Service because it is unworkable given the contrasting funding structures. 

But Andy doesn't want to deal in facts, just soundbites. And no-one is allowed to mess with the hallowed NHS. 

Mark Carney and Andy Burnham, doing politics differently. This is only appealing if you happen to like football. And I don't.

Northumberland was fabulous, as always. I'm going back in early May to see Alnwick Castle Garden's Cherry Orchard in full blossom. 

It was fabulous in September, with the leaves just turning and the swings moving in the breeze through the orchard. 

But the blossom is the real thing. The Cherry Orchard was planted in 2008 and has the largest collection of 329 Taihaku trees in the world. Also known as the ‘Great White’, Taihaku are large and sturdy trees, that bloom for two weeks in spring with huge snow like clusters. In autumn the leaves turn a beautiful coppery colour. In Japan, cherry blossom has a deep cultural significance and represents the exquisite beauty and also the fragility of life. But the Taihaku became extinct in Japan. Captain Collingwood Ingham (known as Cherry Ingram, on account of his preoccupation with cherry trees) visited Japan in 1926 to give a lecture to the Sakurai Society. He was shown an illustration in an 18th century book of the extinct tree and recognised that he had seen it in a Sussex garden, where it had been imported in 1899. Cherry Ingram took cuttings from that tree and reintroduced it to Japan in 1932. All the Taihaku in cultivation today are descended from that lone Sussex tree. Yes, of course I want one! Unfortunately, my tiny courtyard garden  is too small to invite a Taihaku to move in.

Alnwick's Cherry Orchard

There are four splendid anthologies of the writings of stanislav and mr ishmael, compiled by his friend, mr verge, the house filthster. You can buy them from Amazon or Lulu. Here's how:

Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack, Ishmael’s Blues, and the latest, Flush Test (with a nice picture of the late, much lamented, Mr Harris of Lanarkshire taking a piss on a totem pole) are available from Lulu and Amazon. If you buy from Amazon, it would be nice if you could give a review on their website.

IIshmaelites wishing to buy a copy from lulu should follow these steps 

please register an account first, at lulu.com. This is advisable because otherwise paypal seems to think it's ok to charge in dollars, and they then apply their own conversion rate, which might put the price up slightly for a UK buyer. Once the new account is set up, follow one of the links below (to either paperback or hardback) or type "Ishmael’s Blues" into the Lulu Bookstore search box. Click on the “show explicit content” tab, give the age verification box a date of birth such as 1 January 1960, and proceed.

Link for Hardcover : https://tinyurl.com/je7nddfr

Link for Paperback : https://tinyurl.com/3jurrzux

https://www.lulu.com/shop/ishmael-smith/flush-test/paperback/product-9yjvn7.html?q=Flush+Test&page=1&pageSize=4

At checkout, try WELCOME15 in the coupon box, which (for the moment) takes 15% off the price before postage. If this code has expired by the time you reach this point, try a google search for "Lulu.com voucher code" and see what comes up.

With the 15% voucher, PB (including delivery to a UK address) should be £16.84; HB £27.04.