Apologies in advance for any typos I am on a train, on my phone and it's a pain to proof read.
You asked for opinions. Those are my opinions and the reasons behind them. In my view, he is part of the problem, and so are Labour more broadly. The Prime Minister may be “first amongst equals”, with arguably less individual power than in the past, but the wider political team and direction of travel still matter. I believe the country will be poorer, weaker and more divided.
Your post was reductive and an unfair reading of what I said. Wanting growth, productivity and wealth creation to be prioritised alongside redistribution does not automatically mean I am “guarding privilege like Gollum.” I am for none of the above politically. They are all just grifters wearing different colours. I just believe it is perfectly possible to support social mobility, public services and helping vulnerable people while still questioning whether ever-higher taxation and redistribution alone solves this country’s problems. I also think the phrase “politics of envy” can sometimes be a reasonable criticism of how certain policies are framed politically in order to build support for them.
My point is not that all taxation or redistribution is wrong. It is that there are limits and trade-offs involved, which many economists with differing perspective recognise. After a certain point, continually increasing the tax burden in a country with weak growth and low productivity will become counterproductive by discouraging investment, entrepreneurship and skilled worker staying in work - we already have a problem with people retiring early or changing their working pattern to not hit tax cliff edges, ultimately shrinking tax receipts/ the tax base needed to fund public services sustainably. There is such a thing as the Laffer Curve.
I also think there is a huge difference between concentrated corporate/HNW wealth and ordinary people who worked, paid taxes, saved into pensions or bought a family home decades ago. Increasingly, Labours rhetoric lumps these different under disingenuous provocative labels such as “asset rich”, “privileged” or “those with the broadest shoulders”. This can can make normal aspiration sound morally suspect and imply there a limit that decent people do not go beyond. Many of these people are not living extravagant lifestyles. They did what was asked of them by successive governments: work, save, contribute and try to build long-term security for themselves and their families. In many cases, self-funders already subsidise large parts of the social care system through their taxes and assets - c30% of the social care bill according to different sources. If you continually penalise saving, ownership and self-reliance, you risk eventually creating more dependency on the state rather than less.
I will say it again. If we really want to address housing inflation and the cost-of-living crisis, we need to look at structural causes such as supply constraints, planning, infrastructure and broader economic stagnation rather than implying ordinary homeowners are responsible for national decline. Governments, both red and blue, encouraged home ownership add in deregulation of parts of the financial market and a failure to replace enough social housing (both of them guilty). Increasingly, private companies profit from shortages while taxpayers still absorb many of the wider social costs.
The same applies to higher education. Labour often talks about “lifting children out of poverty”. For years, young people have been encouraged to go to university as a way to improve their lives and become the most productive citizens they can be. Universities should therefore be viewed as an investment in people and in the country’s future prosperity. That is why I think pushing a reductionist rhetoric suggesting that “people who did not go to university should not have to pay for those who do” is overly simplistic and breeds contempt. Many graduates are likely to become net contributors over their lifetimes through increased earnings and higher taxes. So higher education often benefits the wider economy and the public purse, not just the individual. Yet graduates under Labour are increasingly framed as privileged beneficiaries of public support, despite many having eyewatering student debts yet fewer job opportunities. (Budget for growth anyone?). Plan 2 borrowers enjoying the extra “privileges”. Granted, that is a system Labour did not create, but one it appears content to continue benefiting from. If we want to talk protectionism and systems that unfairly burden certain groups, perhaps we should start there.
And on Burnham specifically, yes, “bit player” might be jarring to you, but is is a fair description. He held senior roles but did not the power of Cameron, Johnson or Blair. You completely missed my broader point - he build a regional kingdom/ anti-Westminster reputation, only to jack in it as soon as there was a sniff of even more power.
As for the “medical condition” comment, people had already commented that he was “hot” and charismatic, which is equally unrelated to policy or competence. I accept that neither comment or the others adds anything to a serious political discussion, but I found it interesting that my comment was singled out while the other appearance-based remarks were largely ignored. If this were a female politician, I suspect comments about attractiveness would have been challenged much more quickly.
I still stand by the view that he is not the right person to become Prime Minister. As for who did what - red, blue or orange - we are well past simple tribal politics at this point. I just want someone in power and will actually fix the country rather than blindly following an ideological, heavy tax and redistribution policy that has repeatedly failed to deliver in any country that has tried it.
Does this make my position clearer? it's pretty much what I wrote earlier.