Going on holiday as Prime Minister comes at a cost
Prime Ministers too deserve a holiday, just maybe not while your party’s still fighting for survival, writes Michael Martins in today’s Notebook
Burnham shouldn’t have gone on holiday if he’s worried about Reform
As Burnham cut his holiday short this week, I was very surprised that he was on holiday in the first place. Not because Prime Ministers should never take leave (they definitely should!), but because it ignored the lessons he and his team should have learned from last summer.
Last July and August, many Labour special advisors changed their Whatsapp statuses to “Out of Office”, but their Reform counterparts did not. The Starmer government’s prioritisation of work-life balance happened during and shortly after 2025’s peak of small boat crossings in July (reaching 5,454 according to the House of Commons research service). Starmer effectively abandoned the immigration debate in favour of a beach chair, allowing Reform to win the 2025 summer media contest. Reform’s media and polling momentum carried into party conferences in September and October, where the main parties spent their time responding to Reform’s anti-immigration policies, rather than setting out their own stalls.
This same pattern has repeated itself as Burnham and his team went on leave amidst the scenes in Ceuta. Reform’s Home Affairs spokesperson, Zia Yusuf, flew to Spain to find and interview migrants seeking to enter the UK, substantiating and further hardening Reform’s supporters’ views on immigration. For a PM ostensibly focused on winning back Reform supporters in the Labour heartlands, Burnham appears to have ceded the immigration debate yet again in favour of a sun lounger.
To move the narrative on, No. 10 have highlighted Burnham’s upcoming national tour to discuss the cost of living (after his holiday abroad, of course). But with ever more tax rises coming, it’s an odd approach to ask people around the country to ignore their concerns about the economy and small boats while asking if paying more in tax has somehow lowered their cost of living.
So, although Burnham is thankfully back from holiday (just as a record 230 people crossed the Channel in a single dinghy), if this is what his first 90 days in power looks like, I sadly expect the Burnham bounce will be short lived.
Brick Lane is black cabs all over again
The protests outside an approved data centre in Brick Lane have already begun and this reminded me of the initial protests against Uber over a decade ago. At the time, most of the tech companies brushed off the resistance from supporters of black cab drivers as Luddism, but they now face a thicket of specific employment laws and tax burdens derived from that opposition. I expect AI companies will face a similar future if they don’t nip the nascent political opposition in the bud.
Why does Westminster Council hate Soho?
The news last week that Westminster Council wanted to ban drinking a pint in the sunshine while standing outside a pub in Soho made me incredibly sad. The magical feeling of enjoying a pint outside a pub during the cool summer nights is sadly banned in most of North America and was therefore one of my main non-economic reasons for moving to London. Even though the council eventually rowed back and said this wasn’t its intention, they still seem intent to push through other bad ideas like banning takeaways after 11pm.
Let the Count wear his bin
Although unlikely to become an MP this week, if Binface does, parliamentary standards should adjust to allow him to speak in Parliament while in costume (he should have to vote bare-faced, however, to maintain the integrity of parliamentary divisions). His potential constituents will have voted for him having never seen him out of costume, so they would clearly know what they were voting for. Besides, parliamentary standards change. 10 years ago, MPs weren’t allowed to have notes in the main chamber, now some forget to skip over the AI prompts in their speeches.
The London restaurant that lived up to Instagram
I am a huge fan of chefs on Instagram giving an expert’s view of how a dish is made and perfected, and the two chefs behind Fallow are amongst my favourites. It was therefore a special treat to discover Fallow reserves space for walk-ins (at least over the slower summer months) as I was looking for a bit of spontaneity on a Wednesday evening.
Although the two main chefs weren’t at the restaurant when I was there, it was still a lot of fun to test some of the dishes that I’ve only ever seen via social media. If you’re in the Haymarket neighbourhood and want to try your luck, give Fallow a go over the summer. I would recommend the Miso martini and the short-rib burger.
Michael Martins is a partner at Overton Advisory. He was formerly a staffer at the US embassy London