To feel utterly miserable about a future with Andy Burnham as PM?

[OneWarmHazelQuail]

I feel like I'm being stung in every possible way at the moment- £15 a day on tube to work, high mortgage costs, high energy costs, private schooling for SEN child (I was told state wouldn't be unlikely to assist him as he isn't mute or violent). My parents have had to help fund schooling it felt like my only hope as son has behavioural issues.

I also have an unsold old home that I have to rent out as it wouldn't sell. Buy-to-let mortgage costs, agent fees, maintenance and tax put me in a loss position.

I can't bear what the future holds with Andy Burnham. I have no doubt that he will find new and imaginative ways to keep me in this financial nightmare. I'm literally struggling from food poverty but regarded as rich by policy.

YABU- Andy Burnham is actually going to make things better

YANBU- I'm screwed

Get on with what? Bankrupting the country? Appointing the total weirdo Milliband to impose himself on people’s bathroom towel warmers? You seem to be confused. Burnham doesn’t have a plan to do ‘stuff’ he hasn’t got the first idea how to turn things around!

I keep hearing about his amazing achievements in Manchester, but I have never followed Manchester local politics, and I’m sure there are many more just like me

Can you list them for me, please?

The UK is so bloody depressing right now. We are mid thirties and taxed up to our eyeballs and paying huge amounts on childcare, mortgage, bills etc. you look to my parents generation who are retired in massive homes on pensions better than my NHS salary and it’s galling to know however hard we work we will never have that same retirement. Then I look at colleagues on benefits who are bringing in £1500 a month because they know how to play the system (I work in healthcare and see hundreds of people getting benefits who could easily work but know how to manage the system).
It’s not going to get better and time soon it’s getting worse. The country feels less safe, we can’t afford the nice days out of the past we literally go to work earn a good salary and spend hours each month budgeting, looking for deals and food shopping cheap to make it work. What the point?
We are voting with our feet and moving abroad.

So what did the conservatives do in their almost 2 decades of power to improve this? Did they improve employment? Did they improve the economy? Did they improve public education and the NHS for the vast majority of people who rely on them? Did they make our highstreets safer/cleaner/more productive? Did they remain scrupulous and public-serving so that people maintained trust in the democratic system and dangerous right wing fanatics couldn't come along and convince us that our problems are all down to a few immigrants who have even less power/money/choice than we do? What has any government done in the last 30 years to make anything more positive or prosperous for anyone but the elite few?

1. I can read, thanks
2. You totally missed my point

He’s leaving Manchester £1.4 billion in the red

I don’t know what op wants, I think she is not coming back. But I don’t want Andy Burnham, I want Starmer to continue his term, which sadly won’t happen because of backstabbers in the party. Starmer was doing a decent job given the mess he had to deal with.

I will defend Andy Burnham as he was a great mayor. He did a lot for transport and really sorted out the Bee system and made it more affordable and run smoothly. He also did a lot for arts and culture and set up a regular festival of culture and pumped a lot of money into this in Manchester. He did a lot of homelessness and has a charity specifically with the aim to eradicate homelessness eventually. He was affable and present and made the effort with everyone.

I think for many people the issue is not so much the tax, it is the feeling like you have done what is expected of you and then feeling that you are being punished for not deserving it.

we are all encouraged to work hard at school and get all those top grades. Why bother? Predominately To get a good job and earn a higher salary. Higher salaries are good all round for the person and the government.
but good grades alone don’t get you that higher salaries. They often involve years of further study, often 10-12 hours days. Massive personal sacrifice (eg I only could take 5 months maternity leave, my DH was barely ever back to out the children to bed when the kids were small, we bought a run down houses as that was all we could afford and did a lot of the work ourselves even whilst raising toddlers).

we did all the things we were supposed to do. And yes, now we have a nice house in a nice area with a large mortgage. And I get that puts us in a privileged position compared to others but we worked for it and are still working for it. So when AB is talking about taxing us on the value of the land our house sits on when we own less equity in the house than someone on a smaller patch of land and we have to pay more, the psychological grind of why are we bothering does start to get you down.

So when I hear Bridget talk about everyone having a great education, in the back of my head I’m thinking- why bother? They only want to punish you later for it. That specifically is why I have never voted Labour in the past. ‘Work hard, but don’t get above yourself’

Move out of London, stop with the private school and just have an evening tutor, drop the price on the home you cant sell (you obviously are asking for too much). You can't tell me your life is so doomed - you have a lot more choices than 99% of people in the country.

Because gdp is generated by private businesses. Not the councils or the nhs. By individuals having the guts to risk their financial security to set up companies and build something from nothing and then employ people.
17,000,000 people in the UK are employed by small privately owned businesses. That's 60% of our work force.
Labour has made it almost impossible for those small businesses to survive. They certainly cannot flourish. They may limp along but Labour is hobbling them, discouraging new ones from starting up, making it more likely existing ones will fail or owners will give up and retire.

What sane person would start a business under Labour's NI/minimum wage/ business charges for electricity/business rates ?

But it’s easier to handle a city than a country, which is also impacted by what’s happening globally.

Hong Kong. Why?

Can I ask where you are moving to?

It would be easier to hear your concerns if you gave even one thought for how very much more 'screwed' a great percentage of people are - the ones who will never own one home, let alone two, the ones who don't have parents willing/able to pay for private school etc.

Also, as others have mentioned on this thread to think through the structural changes in the last forty years that have left us all - not just you - in difficulty.

Burnham is already making his first mistake replacing Mahmood.
She was doing a good job as Home Secretary, why the fuck change her to the Exchequer?

She won’t even be able to parrot ‘I AM an economist! I AM!!’

The problem is Reeves and most of the Labour Party are utterly useless, they have no idea how to stimulate growth, they have no plan whatsoeve and we are stagnating as a country in a pool of talentless, helpless incompetence.

The conservatives had no idea how to either, they were in power for 14 years and things got steadily worse.

Agree with this. Our current economy is the issue (and it is an issue globally in a lot of countries). PMs do not really run the country, changing the PM will not do anything unless they really get the ultra rich to contribute. Which they won't. There is nothing to take from people who are poor, so that is why they are going after the middle classes now, but nothing will change if we continue to moan about PIP payments, WFA, income tax, pensions, free childcare hours etc and be pitted against each other. Life shouldn't need subsidising so much for the average person.

People do need to grow up and stop acting like squabbling children because one person has something they dont have (usually because they are disabled, or they are older and paid tax all their life, or have it shit some other way), and see the bigger picture.

Worn down by constant taxes? Can you point to a time in your lifetime when the UK didn't have 'constant taxes'? This government hasn't raised income tax or NI for employees.

Why don't you move to a tax haven? You'd obviously be happier there, not contributing to society.

We need a PM to make some hard decisions to stop the decline of this country, Starmer wasn't the man and I dont think Burnham is the man.

Is like to include Boris Johnson and the Covid spending, plus Liz Truss to your list. However no apparently some people have very short memories at how terrible that all was and like to blame the last two years instead.

The country is in a mess. Not sure why anyone wants it because it’s like football management nowadays. Couple of years and you are out. It’s ridiculous.

What are you ranting about? I bever said I was a conservative 😂

Anyone else remember "There is no money left"? That was Labour wasn't it?

@DreadedInn we are moving to the UAE which I know mumsnet hates. My husband is already there and he said the feeling of positivity and potential is like nothing he’s ever experienced working in the UK.

And how about the £138m awarded in contracts to Labour donors since they gained power this time???!!

Bit I guess that’s ok because it’s Labour 🙄

Again, Burnham is not going to have all this control that the Left or Right are frothing about.
He is just the leader of the party who are currently in government.
The back benchers will stymie him as they did with Starmer.
Just be pissed off that many of us didn’t get the government we voted for. Changing the mouthpiece doesn’t change everything and neither should it.
In this country, the idea is that you vote for your local representative, not a personality.