UK Column News — 30th September 2026

Mike Robinson (0:00)

The UK Column News The UK Column News The UK Column News September 2026, just after one o'clock. Welcome to UK Column News. I'm your host, Mike Robinson. Joining me by video link today are Charles Malet and Vanessa Beeley, later in the programme. Of the latest on the RAF Fairford debacle, we'll be looking into the lifestyles of those who would send us to war, and we now know the date that we'll have to identify ourselves in order to use social media in the UK. We'll also be joined a little later by a very special guest, but we'll begin today with Andy Burnham. Let's bring him on screen.

Burnham's first Labour Party conference speech delivered yesterday. I'm sure most people have seen clips. What was he selling? Well, partly, he was selling his own ego, but mostly hope him because the tagline for the conference is hope again. We've all got to start hoping and so on. Now, I'm not going to inflict too much of Burnham on you today, but I did want to play this short excerpt.

Andy Burnham (1:15)

Imagine living in a Britain where people feel the country has got their back again. A Britain for everyone, no matter who we are or where we're born. We would be unstoppable and we will be. The politician in me wants to give the usual tub thumping conference speech today. But the patriot in me tells me something very different is needed. This country isn't where any of us would want it to be. Politics as usual has taken it backwards.

More of the same isn't good enough. That's why I feel I have to break the mould today. I'm going to give you a real speech.

Everyone can see the position Britain is in. Everyone knows things are not working as they should. Everyone is talking about how life is too expensive. Everyone wants less drift and more direction. Today, I answer that call. Hope, hope comes from honesty. And we will have hope again. But first, honesty.

It comes from saying the things politicians usually avoid.

Mike Robinson (2:52)

So for almost a microsecond, I did wonder if he meant that he was going to talk about Epstein and grooming gangs. But as I say, that was just a fleeting thought wiped out by me telling myself not to be so stupid. So what was he talking about? Well, if you're patient enough to sit through the crocodile tears, you would have heard him rhyme off a list of the main topics we've been highlighting on this news program for years. So let's just run through them here. First, energy. Now he claimed that his goal is to reduce energy costs to bring them into parity with the rest of Europe, as if that's going to make a difference.

Not immediately though, within a decade. In the meantime, we're going to see what? 16, 17, 18% price rises in the new year. He wants to reform the energy market, he said, expanding on renewables and nuclear and speeding up decoupling electricity prices from international gas.

And he said that he wants to take a pragmatic approach to the North Sea as a bridge to clean energy. And there will be a first national energy plan with a stronger role for mayors and local leaders. That was a theme right the way through the speech.

And he announced the Great British Grid, a new publicly owned branch of Great British Energy. It will compete with private operators, he said, to cut costs and speed up grid connections for businesses. And well, the question then is which businesses will, as I say, this isn't about reducing prices for you or me. It's about data centers and the connection to the grid problem is largely a data center problem. And we've reported on this before, but contracted demand offers have increased from 41 gigawatts to 125 gigawatts between November 2024 and June 2025 Those are the latest statistics. And it has not improved since then. And this is driven largely by the demand from data center projects. And just as we said before, by comparison, peak electricity demand for the whole of the UK at the moment is only 45 gigawatts. So they're talking as a minimum, doubling what is required. And there's no prospect of that energy being made available anytime soon. Then if we come back to them for a second, the next item on the list was social care and his great unfunded plan to create a national care service to sit alongside the National Health Service. But it's all smoke and mirrors as he needed to find an excuse to dump the so-called triple lock on pensions, which guarantees the UK state pension increases every April by whichever of three economic measures is the highest.