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

[spiceupyourlives]

I’m really impressed by him working with the tories and Lib Dems on social care. It’s what we’ve needed more of in this country for so long, and a solution to the crisis will only come about if the next party to take charge is also committed to the solution.

I still have investments and financial exposure to the UK, so it really will.

Best not to make assumptions I find.

It’s a fair assumption that someone with a stake in the country would want stability. Unless of course they’re shorting and making money from chaos.

Good point.

dilligafy has been here before I suspect 😉

Wrong, I’m afraid.

One would prefer volatility so that they could trade it.

From your posts you appear to have a non-finance background. No assumption, merely deductive reasoning.

We’ve been over this Pandora, sooooo many times.

My user name informs my view.

He hasn't actually done anything yet, not that it would be reasonable to expect him to. So all we can judge is whether he is saying the right sort of things, and braadly he is. Though, he hasn't yet given anyone a coherent plan, just a series of uncosted aspirations, clearly pitched to sound good. Starmer also started off saying the right things...he just didn't, or couldn't, or didn't have enough time to, actually deliver.

My biggest fear for the UK is that it takes another year to actually come up with and articulate a coherent plan, which will inevtiably mean some tough choices, and that will then have no chance of being delivered before the next election.

As I read, and might have mistranslated, here in Italy when he because PM, "Man who ran busses in provincial city is now UK PM and has a tough job ahead"

Yes. I worked the user name out, but I don't know who Pandora is.

You must be new then - as she was v active on your favourite thread.

i agree something should be done about adult social care but the billion pound (plus) question is where is the money going to come from?
Just as more needs to be spent on defence or education or the court / judicial system. We can all come up with suggestions on where the Government should spend more money. The tricky part is where does the money come from- other than "let's tax the rich more" - with "rich" being defined as anybody earning more money than me but most definitely not me.

Fair question, and what’s also interesting is that I did like Kier Starmer and thought he was doing an ok job !

What AB has done that I am liking :

Bus fare cap , we need to invest in public transport and in order to do that we need people to be using it.

Change in schools focus plan , the ‘get everyone to uni’ system does not work anymore and done properly this could completely overhaul our curriculum and make education accessible and useful for all children

Social care review, currently social care is not fit for purpose and is run by profiteering companies.

Investment in nuclear deterrent (double points here as it’s in an area which has always been neglected and overlooked and will really benefit from this)

Yes I know it’s talk and reviews etc but he is at least saying the right things , which is a start. If he can implement what he is saying I think Labour will win back its heartland voters .

I don’t think people should have tribal like allegiance to parties because I don’t think it’s good for politics, and I have in the past voted for Lib Dem’s, Labour and yes even Conservatives because they were broadly offering policies at that time i agreed with.

To your point, there is a great calculator in the link below.

By all means drive high earners away…

www.telegraph.co.uk/money/tax/income/can-britain-afford-lose-you-how-many-workers-replace-tax/

Very hard to take anything the Telegraph say on economics seriously, though, isn’t it?! After all, they breathlessly praised the Kwasi Kwarteng budget that triggered massive financial turmoil and added hundreds of pounds to ordinary people’s mortgages every month - it’s all very well harping on about the imagined pain of hypothetical tax raises, while many of us are still feeling the very real financial pain of that disaster. They should have a bit of humility.

I think one of Andy Burnham’s most successful bits of rhetoric has been telling the media to stop second guessing and scare mongering and allow a grown up political conversation to take place. And I think sections of the media would do well to take that advice if they don’t want to keep drifting ever further from public opinion.

The thing I find mystifying is the insistence that more money must be found. There’s an argument that there’s already enough money in the system and it’s being used ineffectively. It doesn’t suit the right wing narrative though.

And I completely agree about The Telegraph @Visiblyabove25. It’s based on speculation specifically designed to keep its readership in a perpetual lather of indignation.

I know it is still early days, but nothing wrong with having a little hope:

I don't disagree that, with the overall taxation burden at a record high of 38% then the only solution is find the money from within the existing Government spending (or "system " as you describe it) that is being spent "ineffectively" .

The problem however with this is that what one person describes as "ineffective spending " another will describe as "essential spending ". The press and media will always focus on those examples where cuts to spending will impact those are deserving and genuinely need the money through no fault of their own. Even if in the majority of cases it is indeed ineffectual.

At first glance, I thought that was a forecast of the tax hikes we can expect.

Of course you did.😄

Burnham is peddling hope for normal people and as a result is much more popular with young people than any other prime minister ever was. But lets see if anything comes out of this. The Tories are and have always been against social care.

Teresa May (Tory!) tried to solve it in 2017 but couldn't get it through Parliament because Labour and LibDems wouldn't support her proposals and she didn't have a majority to push it through.

Based on the very short time he’s had so far, I’m impressed. His communication skills are light years ahead of his predecessor, and his announcements, for me, are making all the right noises. There’s no quick fix to any of this stuff, it’s going to take years for some things to be resolved, but so far so good.

I can’t help thinking there are some people who’ve decided he’s going to be shit and so have adopted the position that everything he does is wrong; he’s not perfect, none of them are, but a lot of people have an agenda.

Kemi is showing fantastic progression on that chart - maybe we should have hope!

Happy to see Badenoch progressing, hopefully it will translate into better polling. I would much rather the Tories were the main opposition to fight rather than Reform. Fingers crossed that will be the case eventually.

Leader approvals don’t necessarily translate into party support so I don’t think any of us should get too excited.

I don't have an agenda necessarily but I suspect maybe he has and it's just that he wants to be PM.
I haven't hidden the fact that I thought Keir Starmer was given an unfairly tough time by the press and was actually better at the job than he was ever allowed to be portrayed.

I don't like, and never will, the way Burnham came to power and at the moment that does cloud my judgement of him. I'm not convinced it's not all just an act and it's more about him & his career than anything else.

But I am prepared to eat my words and would actually be overjoyed if he does actually turn out to be genuine and becomes the right man to lead us right now.
It's too early to tell yet of course.

When Theresa May was looking at social care reform back in 2017, there was
intense pressure from select committees, healthcare organisations, and charities urging her to seek a cross-party consensus on the issue. She chose to bypass the other parties. She didn’t have the support within her own party either, and she failed to win over the electorate. So, her attempts failed.

That failure is a really good example of why Andy Burnham trying to get cross party support from the outset - so that the political pain of what will undoubtedly be difficult decisions is shared - is an excellent and necessary way forward.