Not sure if you are familiar with the term Anarcho-Tyranny.
Well, it’s a political concept describing a dysfunctional system where the government fails to enforce fundamental laws, you know car theft, driving electric scooters on the pavement etc (causing anarchy), but rigidly enforces minor, bureaucratic, or oppressive laws against innocent citizens (the tyranny, such as 20 mph zones and prosecuting you for doing 21mph/parking outside your house without a permit). The term was coined in 1992 by political theorist, Samuel Francis.
What we have here right now is a uniquely British version of that situation with added camper van, but more on that later.
First off there is, depending on when you read this, a new prime minister. It should come as a surprise to everyone (not least Donald J. Trump) because just a few weeks ago he was ‘just a mayor of some town’. Andy Burnham simply woke up one morning and decided he would be the best person to drive the nation over a cliff. It has either happened, is about to, or Britain has descended into full bloody carnage if you are reading this beyond 2027.
The contempt that the governing classes have for us peasants who just pay for it all reaches a new low. If you thought the revolving door at Number 10 was bad enough under the Tories, well this is a whole new dictatorial level of Tyranny. It’s effectively a soft coup with no opposition, a political appointment without the merest whiff of democratic process and zero accountability.
Let’s give our Andy a chance though. Maybe he will be good for us motorists, you never know. He certainly likes buses. Taking a look at the 2025 Manchester Mayoral budget The Bee Network, Greater Manchester’s public transport system, was delivered on time and within the original £134.5m budget secured for the transition to a fully franchised bus system.
That included new routes, free all-day bus travel for older and the disabled. All very worthy. Not only that there was free bus travel for 16-18-year-olds through the Our Pass scheme. In his own words the Mayor of Greater Manchester said: “The money people pay through the precept is helping us bring positive change to Greater Manchester, with policies that help people manage the cost-of-living. It helped us deliver Bee Network – a ground-breaking bus reform programme that we have delivered on time and within budget, plus a host of other major public transport improvements. In the last year we’ve introduced free all-day bus travel for older and disabled people, launched new and improved bus services, such as the number 30, and we’ve introduced TravelSafe LiveChat, a game-changer for improving safety for Bee Network passengers…Economic growth is transforming our city region and giving us opportunities that people could not have imagined 30 years ago, and it’s crucial that our public services are not left behind.”
Maybe he will scale that tup o a national level so we can get everywhere by bus. The official plan is that by 2030, 90% of people in Greater Manchester will be within a five-minute walk of a bus or tram that comes at least every 30 minutes with a £2 fare cap across all bus travel. So he likes buses and we have lots of pictures of our Andy with buses. He did manage to order over 200 electric buses from Northern Irish manufacturer Wrightbus.
Indeed, When launching the city’s Bee Network transport system in 2021, he urged locals “to get on board with us”. Then in 2022, he told a conference that lawmakers should ensure commuters can ditch their cars. Yet his office spent £25,826 on 26 trips with Prestige Chauffeurs Limited in 2024 and 2025. Apparently the Police Authority reckon it is the safest thing to do in certain circumstances and certainly more convenient than relying on them buses which don’t deliver passengers door to door, on or off peak.
On the subject of cars one mainstream media outlet would have it that Burnham has almost no opinion on cars at all, so basically move along, nothing to see there at all. Except that when we found the picture of Mayor Andy standing next to a ‘Lecky’ Taxi he was providing the keynote speech at the “moving North’ Conference in April 2018. He had rather a lot to say about cars. Here is some of the utterly predictable carbon based Burnham word salad.
“Can devolution of power to the English regions accelerate the change to greener transport?”. Andy added: “At our Green Summit in March, over 700 people came together to help us set a pathway for making Greater Manchester one of the greenest city-regions in Europe.
“Low carbon transport is clearly a vital component of that ambition. Proposals on the table include establishing a new public sector-led commercial model for the Greater Manchester electric vehicle (GMEV) charging network this year and doubling the size of the network.
“If we are to tackle the challenges involved in reducing transport emissions in the region, and support growing demand for greener travel, it is vital that we bring all sectors together and move as one.
“We must be bold in our ambitions and keep our eyes on the significant long-term benefits, not just the short-term challenges. Greater Manchester wants to move to an emissions-free bus fleet and we will look at whether new bus powers for Mayors of combined authorities can help us to achieve this faster.
“Being among the first to fully embrace new green technologies has the potential to bring huge economic advantages, and Greater Manchester is primed and ready to take that step. The automotive industry is hugely important for jobs in the UK, and the next generation of ultra-low emission vehicles will provide huge opportunities for our digital and manufacturing sectors.”
Well, that didn’t work out entirely as planned did it? We can see where he is coming from and going to. Not surprisingly then, in 2022 he spent over £100m on introducing a clean air zone in Manchester that would have seen vans and lorries paying up to £60 a day to drive in the city.
The scheme didn’t affect private cars at all, but Burnham was forced to scrap it after a massive backlash, which is an example to all of us about how to deal with a political opportunist who prefers to be a populist. In 2022 Mayor Andy Burnham said claims linking his wife’s finances and the region’s Clean Air Zone plan are “disgraceful”.
Yet in December 2025 (15th) a declaration of Councillor interests included “Mayor Andy Burnham declared an interest in Item 5 decision 2 related to Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure by virtue of his wife being an employee of Be.Ev”. His Mrs, Marie-France van Heel (also known as Frankie), is the Chief Customer Officer and sits on the board of directors for Be.EV, a Manchester-based public electric vehicle charging network backed by Octopus Energy. So at least that is out in the open.
Significantly, the expensive infrastructure is still in place, so the Manchester CAZ can be activated at any time. Obviously Burnham is a vehicle surveillance and taxation on movement enthusiast to the max.
Not only that Burnham has always been keen on regional devolution, see further the upcoming Number 10 ‘Oop North’ proposals. This could speed up planning permission for the introduction of renewables, so more windmills, panels and all that green guff. But we don’t yet know and although speculation is fun, all we can possibly agree on is that for the motorist it can only get worse. The political class have never had more contempt for the people who pay their taxes, or those who support their parties.
Clearly we do live in an Anarcho Tyranny which is set to continue under self-appointed new management, but what brings me to the Camper Van element is a recent shocking case in Scotland.
In case you had not heard, former Scottish National Party Chief Executive Peter Murrell was sentenced on June 23, 2026, to five years and three months in prison for embezzling over £400,000 from the party. He had previously pleaded guilty to a “calculated crime of dishonesty” involving hundreds of fraudulent transactions over a 12-year period.
It all involved a £124,550 camper van, a Niesmann+Bischoff parked outside the house where Murrell’s mother lived at the time, which had only covered 4 miles. I can hear you all saying, ‘James, that’s a motorhome, not a camper.’ Well, it doesn’t matter what it’s called you are still having a crap and cleaning your teeth in a cupboard, then cooking over a Bunsen Burner. So, this is basically camping. Murrell though didn’t drive the camper much because he had a more sensible runabout in the shape of an eighty one grand Jaguar I-Pace.
The Edinburgh High Court heard that Murrell then lied about what it was in the party’s records, describing it as a van in a faked invoice, and proceeded to stock it up with hundreds of pounds worth of luxury goods. The Jag I-Pace SUV was identified as “stage payment” in a fake invoice. Incidentally the £3,070 cost of a robotic Husqvarna lawnmower, found by police at the home he then shared with First Minister Mrs Nicola Sturgeon, was listed as “legal fees”.
What do we learn from this? The political system and that includes the parties, are completely corrupt. All of them. Don’t give them your money.
2026 is a watershed year. The one where we got a bus loving northern monkey of a PM appointed and accountable to no one, who will take a tax payer funded private hire Audi when it suits him, spout carbon bollox and spaff it all on Camper Vans.
Welcome to the world of Anarcho Campervan Tyranny. You heard it here first.
