Andy Burnham

Agree. His first instruction is something almost impossible to achieve, and heavily relied on local services and adult social care, which is the responsibility of local authorities. His first instruction isn't even something he can do. Reforming adult and elderly care, yes, even though that's difficult. What about reforming the tax system? He's done politics 101 and made a statement no one can disagree with with no substance behind how he is going to do it with no money. He's another Boris Johnson. His only ambition was to be PM. No thought to what he would do after that.

PMs issue instructions on all sorts of things - then different departments come back with policy proposals.

I am a bit of a (probably short term) fan of his. Given the way politics works, I suspect that I will be disillusioned by Christmas!

What I like about him is that he genuinely seems to want to do the job of a Prime Minister, not just be PM. The last few PMs appear to have run out of ideas and interest as soon as they were appointed.

I think he is right about nationalising some utilities, house building and making taxes more efficient. a housing tax to replace the dreadful combination of council taxes and stamp duty, CGT at your top rate of tax (as long as it is indexed) are both eminently sensible ideas and I doubt you will find many economists disagreeing with him on it.

I also like having a regional policy. The UK’s wealth does need to diversify from London and the SE.

He does seem to want to tax the truly wealthy more (which given how much less tax they pay now as a %) which is laudable in ambition but very hard to do without them either avoiding it or a genuine loss of wealth creators.

Of course, where he will fail as a left winger is in tackling the spending end of the equation. There are too many not contributing to society and the pension triple lock is absolutely crazy given our finances.

But he isn’t truly left wing like Corbyn was. He is still left of centre. He has no desire to bring back punitive taxation or to actually increase the total tax take by more than a percentage or two.

I wish him the best and hope he won’t be dragged into ineffectualness by trying to please all the people all the time. I also hope him tacking left will allow Badenoch to go more for the centre. We need to get back to having an effective opposition (not Reform).

No, not at all. I’m hoping we will get the change we need. I was just a bit surprised by it.

Why not a national priority? It costs us all a fortune in emergency services.

I was glad he referenced high rent costs as being a primary driver of rising welfare costs.

Lets just hope he promotes Mahmood to Chancellor to help keep some sense in the team.

Something tells me whatever he said or did you would find something about it that displeased you. Nanda 66.

Steve Rotherham/Liverpool followed much the same approach as Andy Burnham/Manchester, they wrote a book (Head North) together about their policy approaches.

It’s an admirable ambition but he didn’t set out a wish, he said he would issue an instruction.

I also think it sounds more like the sort of thing I would expect a mayor to say and focus on rather than the first priority for a PM.

Yes how can you issue an instruction to end rough sleeping? How is he going to do that? That will be the first question. How much extra money is he going to give to local authorities to implement drug and alcohol addiction services? Many of them are reform, who couldn't run a bath. He couldn't do it in Manchester yet thinks he can do it throughout the country.

How setting out a wish to end rough sleeping could be construed as arrogant I have no idea !

I hope he does some positive things. That improve Britain.

I agree with his renationalising public services that should never have been privatised. I agree with the need for council housing. Should never have been sold off.

And rough sleeping is hard to eradicate. He has reduced it in Manchester. Which is commendable. But almost impossible to eradicate.

Where I don’t agree with him is on regionalisation. And giving more powers to the regions.

But I do hope for a Government that does something good for people.

Who is in the team will matter much.

It’s not even close to being similar to that.

Farage is definitely more “known” in what his aims and objectives are. Those who say he is unknown are likely to be the ones who fall foul of his policies and then claim “I didn’t think he meant it” or “he wasn’t supposed to do that to me!”

Almost Trumpian with his Executive Orders.

He didn’t say anything about making it illegal.

To be fair making rough sleeping illegal is really taking the fight to Reform.

I thought the comment about issuing an instruction to end rough sleeping was supremely arrogant. He’s not supposed to be a dictator, he should be asking his team to develop a plan.

I am so dismayed, his first instruction, end rough sleeping. How fucking clueless can you get,

The Tories levels up, Labour levels down.

I'm fucking annoyed with the void that Labour are leaving. He is going to give an instruction to eradicate rough sleeping? Rough sleeping increased in Manchester under his watch. And that little slimeball Simmons was right next to him.

Everyone is scared he’s going to fleece people that work and try to improve themselves. À sort of downwardly mobile thrust to add to the current slump.

How many threads are you going to post that on?

He's has really just said he is not going to tell us the plan until later in the year??????????

Looking forward to hearing the plan! Currently it feels like we are all on a bus but with no idea where we are going.