To think Andy Burnham needs to start to show us he can talk about more than "the north" and "buses"

[joeymaynardssandwiches]

I want to get behind Andy Burnham, I feel he's got the potential to be a great counterpoint to the rise of reform. And I do know it's "silly season" in politics and with parliament closed I guess there's a limit on what initiatives can be announced

But so far it feels like he hasn't broken away from being a northern caricature who just bangs on about buses.

I'm a "northerner" (who always thought of Manchester as the part of Midlands ) but I can only do my job in the south and I can assure Andy there are big pockets of deprivation in the south too.

And I am all for public transport, and investment in it. But it just feels like a real "low hanging fruit" approach for his first few weeks and I want to hear him talk about thornier and less uncontroversial issues.

And admittedly I haven't been reading every news story in depth as I have been busy with the kids so he may have discussed other things. But that is my overriding impression at the moment and it feels a bit frustrating

The next boss went into great detail as to why labour has made it hard for them to continue to hire young people .

I don't understand why they don't listen to actual bosses of huge high street companies
The sports direct man and marks and Spencer have all spoken out in horror of laboirs policies

I had no idea that Labour was a democratic socialist party. I need to fall down that particular rabbit hole and have a good read. I know they were traditionally the party of Unions, I just hadn’t thought a huge amount beyond that.

Well, for starters Sports Direct have a notoriously atrocious track record on worker’s rights. They were forced to pay back a huge amount of money after they were found to have underpaid staff below the minimum wage. So, it’s no surprise they’re horrified: their business model relies on cost-cutting at the expense of their workers.

In terms of listening to retail and business leaders more generally though, a massive part of Andy Burnham’s philosophy is that the public and private sector should work together for public good, so, I do think we’re going to see more of that, like with the Sainsbury’s scheme that’s just been announced.