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.

Typical British attitude. “It doesn’t benefit me so nobody can have it”

Couldn't agree more!

Really you say that as regards somebody who has been in power barely a week and is already talking more sense than a party who was in power for 14 years and achieved nothing aside from eroding of public services. That is the true meaning of a party that is all hat and no rabbit!

This country needs somebody who gets on and sorts the major issues this country is struggling with as opposed to petty criticism and zero policies from the sidelines designed to keep backbenchers happy- looking at you Kemi!

He meant that the previous funding formulas unfairly favored inner cities while ignoring the needs of impoverished rural towns and small communities.

Ask Farage. He’s the one who’s put out a statement saying he wasn’t invited and it’s the “uni party”

😂

I think it’s utterly ridiculous that this conversation is taking place two weeks into his premiership. In the summer. This country is doomed for many reasons and the fickle electorate is one of them.

Agree priority he is focusing on ordinary people’s problems.

I like him and I feel like he is focused on issues that I care about. Social care is such a mess and any focus on trying to fix it is a good thing in my opinion. The reduction in bus fairs won’t impact me but is great for my village. Moving things out of London should happen and Manchester is so well connected that it’s a good option.

Yes. The problems in this country are stoked by an extremely right wing press, who dont want anything to succeed unless it benefits millionaires, no matter the cost to the middle and working classes. And also, many members of the public have now been trained to moan the minute things are a bit rocky. Hence all the PMs in a short space of time. The electorate needs to behave more responsibly and grow up s bit and stop simply repeating things they've read in the papers or on TV. The number of poverty stricken , toothless fools I've seen on TV suggesting Nigel Farage will make their lives better is beyond a joke. It's pathetic. We are so politucally illiterate in UK it's laughable.

I don't know much about reform..but at least Tories will immediately bring down energy bills

How?

And yet when the coalition government ran a referendum to reform the voting system to a more equitable one it was soundly rejected.

So we are stuck with the system we have, unfit as it is for a multiparty system. That means that parties which have a strong local base (such as the LibDems) will always do better than ones with wide but dispersed support (such as reform).

So what would you prefer then? For the party that you most closely align with to be shut out of the decision making, just so you can have the satisfaction of carping about Labour without having to spread the responsibility?

Scrapping the green taxes and cutting the carbon tax that artificially increase bills

No, he’s making it cross party because it’s a very long term project which will need years to get bedded down. Cross party involvement is an insurance policy against it getting scrapped with a change of government.

Nice speech on the social care situation but no solutions just we'll think about it for a bit. You'd think someone who first put forward proposals over 10 years ago might have some ideas.

Exactly this. Continuously flip flopping between parties, with it being used as a political football and nothing ever getting sorted.

It’s everybody’s responsibility and previous governments have continuously shied away from that, putting their gain first. A complete dereliction of duty that needs to stop.

The two big things he has announced were already being tackled by Starmer, who set up a Technical Excellence scheme for college last year. The first thing Reeves and Starmer did was Commission a report from Louise Casey on adult social care. You could argue that that is going over old territory as the Dilnot report on ASC was widely praised, but never adopted.

I do agree that these big reforms need to be consensual as nothing will work if every new government changes direction, but on the other hand nothing will be achieved in a 30 minute meeting either.

Burnham is every bit as shallow and clueless as I feared he would be

He's done nothing but moan and complain. He did that though the pandemic, which is possibly understandable considering he was from the opposing party - but then when his own party was voted in on a landslide, he continued to moan and complain. He completely undermined his own leader and has been plotting for months to oust him, whilst trying to convince other MPs to stab him the back. At no point did he ever swing in behind Starmer and attempt to do what's best for the party, and the country. Don't get me wrong, Starmer was useless - but he was voted in with a landslide, loudly promising stability. If I can respect that and support him, I think his own party should too. Instead, Burnham was slithering around doing all he could to grab the throne. Despite knowing he is definitely not who was voted for, his policies are not what was voted for, and if he had actually stood for election neither he nor his policies would have been voted in. As proved by all his previous attempts.

Furthermore, he completely abandoned the people who did vote him in as soon as he spied an opportunity to further himself, whilst handing the bill to the taxpayer. He has greatly overstated his success stories, whilst refusing to credit the people who actually put them in motion - or the predominantly Tory government who prioritised funding for it all. He has also refused to address his failures, of which there are very many, both as mayor and as an MP. He is wasting even more taxpayer money on setting up a home office, which nobody has asked for or voted for. He has offered absolutely no evidence that this will in any way benefit the country, and as far as I know he is not even bothering to do any research, or any exploration of other sites or options. He lives there, so that's where it's going. And we're paying.

His behaviour has been absolutely abysmal, and I suspect if it were a Tory behaving like this you would be the first to complain. We have already had one jumped-up, egomaniacal, power-hungry mayor - I really don't think we need another. Especially one who has demonstrated even worse morals.

Cross party involvement is what led us to the £100 BILLION wasted on HS2!

Hasn't Kemi said she'll only be involved with the social care changes if it's financed by cost savings rather than tax increases? That sounds like a non starter.

Yes, same as he's done with everything else he's talked about. It's all fur coat and no knickers. He talks a good talk, but we need actions not words.

Typical Labour attitude. "It benefits me so fuck everyone else."

As I wrote quite clearly, the vast majority of people have no access to the buses you're so fond of. Bit unpleasant that you're not more concerned about that. But hey, so long as you save a few pennies, that's the main thing.

Do not like the latest idea of paying parents on benefits £4500, if their children start apprenticeships. This is the cover for benefits lost when kids train for an apprenticeship. There are many on benefits who have never worked & have no intention of doing so. How about targeting these people for a change

Nail on the head. We shouldn't have to bribe people to come off benefits.