To think Andy Burnham is doing a decent job so far?

Of course it’s due to our system - that’s a whole other debate.

I was very sceptical, but actually really impressed so far. He's doing sensible things, why has it taken so long to find someone like that? Starmer didn't seem to do anything at all after looking good on paper. Started badly - cutting fuel allowance for elderly, kept going back on rubbish decision and then never really achieved anything.

Everyday I miss Rishi Sunak

Which is his own fault as he resigned as an MP, apart from the fact thatbhis party has so few MPs as to be irrelevant.

He has said stuff, he hasn't done anything. Massive difference, the former being a doddle, the latter quite tricky. Ask again in a year or so!

I think it is a good idea, so in part it is due to that, but it is difficult to get a hammering from the Tory press if they have been somewhat involved. It is good in a way - it stops the ridiculous polarisation our press promotes.

Social care absolutely needs to be a cross party decision and it needs sorting asap, not after waiting for yet another report, how many reports have successive governments done on social care without ever actually addressing the problem. Does that mean Burnhams doing a google job, personally I’ll wait to see the results before deciding, his tinkering around the edges with vat on electricity, bus fares etc hardly make any real impression on the cost of living day to day, doing that means increasing the tax thresholds significantly or reducing the rate of income tax, neither of which are likely

What Arabic people? Iranians are not Arabic. Most Palestinians are... but I don't think we're supposed to mention that as we're meant to pretend they're the helpless indigenous population and the Israelis are the evil colonisers. When obviously it's the opposite. We, America and even Israel are allied with the actual Arabian nations, and are currently trying to defend them from attacks by Iran and Iranian proxies. Which I'm sure you'll be happy to learn.

As far as Burnham, he's so far announced some piddling, un-costed policies which will have little impact. Other than for the very wealthy or wasteful, who might appreciate the lack of VAT when running a mansion. For most of us it's entirely meaningless, and as apparently we don't have much money, one thinks it could be used for something more useful. As for buses, providing some more would be a far more sensible use of money. Most users don't pay anyway, and as has already been seen elsewhere when caps are introduced, bus companies will just change routes to make sure they don't miss out on profits. So a £3 single on one bus will very possibly turn into a longer journey split into two for £4.

But even if that doesn't happen, and the (non-existent) buses are cheaper for the minority of people who actually pay to use them, it seems like the most absurd way to start. How can he possibly think the country's most pressing needs are reducing £3 bus fares and saving an average household £4 a month on electricity? It's naked populism, done badly. Social care is indeed a pressing issue, and one would think he'd want to put every penny he could towards that. Especially when we are almost certainly not going to like what he's proposing, any more than we liked it a decade ago when he first suggested it. If I were one of the other parties, I would keep well clear. There's no chance at all this nasty little man will give them any credit if it goes well, so why would they bother; he's spent a career taking credit for everyone else's work, it's jolly unlikely he'll change now! Of course when it fails, he'll blame them for not supporting him. But as he'll also obviously blame for its failure if they do join him, it makes little difference.

So no, I don't think it's at all a good start. Obviously I may be wrong, and I genuinely hope I am as I have no idea what plan C is.

He's a politician so you have to consider the political motives. Obviously if they all come to some agreement and push through some brilliant well thought out policy it will be great. But I don't really see how, we are paying an unsustainable amount for not enough services where do you go from that starting point? The only answers are cut services more or raise more money in taxes, I'm not sure Burnham can do either of those politically even with backing from other parties. It will be interesting to see the outcome.

You might want to read my subsequent post where I said this wasn’t a bad thing and was politically shrewd. No where in the post you responded to with such fury did I say it’s a bad thing either. I just said it’s his motivation, imo.

In fact, your rage response is what has gone wrong with political discourse in this country. It’s no longer possible to have reasonable debates where people respect and listen to each other. Instead it’s rage and attack. As you illustrate well.

But that’s the right and grown up thing to do, no? All political parties know something desperately needs to be done about social care - but of course none of them want to take the political hit it will inevitably take will lead to. So, sharing the fallout will mean what needs to happen might actually happen.

What the public will be happy with and what the right & necessary for the country aren’t always the same.

Its obviously very, very early days but I think he’s made an incredibly impressive start.

Yes. I like him.

I agree a lot of it is gimmicky and not very meaningful. I live in the NE and do get fed up with the London centric way things work in this country. But London has been the seat of economic and political power for a thousand years. That’s not going to change because he opened an office in Manchester in a week. And Manchester is not representative of “the north”

Details details, Burnham will work on those later. Just like any student project the first step was to spend time on the logo, which was successfully ticked off in week one.

I was with you until the ‘it was obvious BN would retaliate as he’s been itching for a reason’ comment.

Any leader in the entire world would give a comprehensive military response to a neighbour and their terrorist and state allies who launched an attack like Oct 7th. Absolutely no country could tolerate an enemy who did that, followed it up with firing tens of thousands of rockets at you and sending more terrorists into your country to murder your citizens, and who pledged their commitment to keep committing such sadistic attacks on your citizens and stated their intent to destroy your country. The tunnel system Hamas has it’s more akin to an underground city. It is hundreds of miles long and multi layer. Hamas and its allies have dedicated huge sums of money and many, many years to preparing for attacks like Oct 7th. Hezbollah have a similar tunnel network. That they will abduct and starve and country Israeli citizens in again if they can. No, no leader of any country would tolerate that. And the only country in the world that is expected to is Israel.

Too soon to tell, at the moment it is just words and there doesn't seem to be much focus on actual change and support for education at primary level.

Note how the Lib Dems have gone very quite on PR recently....

I don't even know what he means by it, government policies have to work for the whole country, is he suggesting the north of the country will have different policies than the rest of the country? Is it just for Manchester? Will it be a glorified mayor's office? Or will it be just a talking shop that refers back to London? Or he just hangs out there sometimes instead of at Number 10 in London.

This kind of attitude is so ridiculous and exactly why the country is in such a mess and paralysed . Consensus is the FASTEST way to get changes done. Why the hell wouldn’t he want to get everyone together on this. It’s a problem across the party divide. This is the kind of attitude that keeps the status quo where nothing happens. You are far far happier to be able to crow from the sidelines that the Labour man fucked it up - than ‘God forbid’ succeed by taking a consensus approach to a national crisis in care. It’s small minded and rather sad.

Well, that's due to our system. The Libdems got those 72 seats on 3,519,143 votes. Reforms 4,117,610 votes ended up with 5 seats.

I've always liked Burnham, and admire his aspirations for investment in the north and passion for Manchester over the years (i am not from the north, so have no skin in the game in this respect). I wasn't a fan of how he became PM, and began to view him with some skepticism. I think the headlines so far have been positive, and perhaps he understands that getting the media on side is the largest battle. I'll reserve further judgement until I see whether his talk translates into action. He won't be able to do much with a weak economy, so I'd like to understand where the money is coming from to balance the books/ reduce national debt. And i am saying this as a lifelong Labour supporter.

I think more cross party work is essential, particularly for something such as the NHS.

Involving the three biggest parties is a positive thing. I personally voted for Lib Dem last time because I genuinely think Ed Davey has some good plans and ideas for healthcare and should be listened to.

And Fag Ash Nige wouldn't want to be part of these talks, because he doesn't want to agree to helping fix the NHS when he could make more money from dismantling it and selling it off to the highest bidder. He just wants to bitch and moan.

In the same way he doesn't want to stop the boats (and let's not forget reform DID NOT vote for a new law that could help stop them) because if labour stop the boats, he has absolutely no ammo anymore.

He attends meetings and isn't stoned/pissed.

Why do you feel a Manchester No. 10 can’t work?