To ask if you watched Andy Burnham’s bloody good speech?

[Househunt2026]

As in actually watched it and didn’t just doom scroll the commentary? It was bold and honest and pragmatic and actually made me hopeful that we have someone at the helm with a vision for a better tomorrow who has Britain’s best interests at heart.

The National Care Service is a masterstroke, paid for out of scrapping the triple lock and the very real savings of reducing NHS bills on A&E and hospital beds for elderly who should be in care but have nowhere to go.

Scrapping right to buy and increasing council control of housing, boosting the technical education track for young people, pushing renewables, nuclear and energy sovereignty, public control of key utilities for water to get bills down and reduce pollution, investing in people & getting them back to work, leasehold reform by Christmas and everyone’s energy bill will be reduced by fast tracking decoupling energy prices from global gas pricing and by having no VAT on energy bills by TOMORROW!

You can watch the whole thing here and be directly informed instead of getting your perspective filtered through all the bots and misinformation peddlers online m.youtube.com/watch?v=jyjTT_55Gi0

But you have another thread where you are a vocal proponent of minimum wage immigration being beneficial to the GDP, despite being presented with evidence that they come at an enormous financial cost further down the road.

I’m sorry, but you cannot be taken seriously.

No. Not in Scotland. A single person on UC gets 434 pounds a month to run a home on. That's a pittance. Some people think it's a fortune but it's a pittance

That they are usually shit? Have a look at the financial forecasts of government bodies and financial institutions (they usually publish quarterly releases) and then look at what actually happens. The alternative GDP estimation of “no Brexit” is just of form of forecast. If you know of an organisation that produces really reliable forecasts then I would genuinely love to know who it is.

Nonsense - Starmer's senior ministers frequently quoted external studies headlined by the media.

Andy Burnham is a stinky little liar.

Edited as I quoted the wrong post.

I think he said it because one of the main attack lines being used against him was that he was pro-Europe - and he was making it clear that despite his personal opinions, he wasn't advocating for an immediate return to the E.U. He still isn't advocating for an immediate return to the E.U. Even within the quote you've given, he doesn't deny thinking Brexit has been damaging, so I do think it's insulting to the people of Makerfield to suggest he somehow hoodwinked them. Also, within the same quote, he's really clear that what he cares about is respecting the democratic choice people in places like Makerfield made - he's still doing that, because he's not arguing we should re-join right now, or even have a referendum right now, without him first getting a mandate for that in a Labour manifesto.

And I do think the fact that Reform and the Conservatives are calling this a 'betrayal' while at the exact same time, the Liberal Democratics are arguing the Prime Minister is too timid for not negotiating an immediate re-entry to the single market, suggests the Prime Minister's path through this is actually balanced and pragmatic.

I personally have no objection to a leader who is fleet-footed enough to adapt and change when the circumstances change. I know some people thought it was a sign of principle that Corbyn didn't seem to have changed his mind about anything for decades, but I personally prefer politicians to be pragmatic and responsive to the world around them.

Was that the thread where you were arguing your case on the basis of your own "lived experience"? I seem to recall that I asked if you could share any credible sources of evidence to back up your argument, and you didn't give me any?

Anyway, I don't really mind whether or not you take me seriously as your own posts on this thread and others seem to reflect a very limited understanding of economic analysis. I am always very happy to learn from the critique of posters who are clearly more knowledgeable than I am, but I can't say I'm bothered about the opinions of people who seem to lack an understanding of the basics.

Lol - Boris was an absolute gibbering idiot!

Yeah, I got that you think the economic analysis was shit. And of course, forecasting is always a very inexact business.

But that wasn't really what I was asking. What I wanted to know was, given that you reject the economic analysis, what is your own analysis of the impact of Brexit and what are you basing that on?

Because from my perspective, unless we just accept that we will never really know the impact of any policy ever, the imperfect analysis is all that we've got. But happy to engage with alternative ways of measuring the impact if you have any?

Well, neither of us can possibly know what Burnham has or hasn't learnt since starting in his new job.

Calling him "stinky" makes you sound slightly like a primary school pupil. It doesn't strengthen your argument.

Burnham pledges not to 're-run' Brexit arguments

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx21en4807wo

Calling him "stinky" makes you sound slightly like a primary school pupil

Fuel bank vouchers aren't government support, but they are available to people who are struggling with the cost of heating their homes. I've checked and they are available in Scotland. Your local citizens advice or similar will probably know more. Might be worth looking into if you are genuinely worried.

Given the UK economy has grown at a faster pace than the 2 largest EU economies since 2016, what makes you think that margin of outperformance would have increased by at least 4% had we remained in the EU for all of this period?

"Don't vote Labour because Andy Burnham is stinky".
That was a party political broadcast on behalf of the Conservative Party.

Powerful innit?

Yes on this, it needs more than just this 4% line.

@Clavinova Thanks for the share - but my response is the same as my response to @EasternStandard

All I can say is to me, this really doesn’t feel like a U-turn and certainly not a betrayal. Andy Burnham has been true to what he said, in that he is not re-running those arguments in this Parliament - he’s giving advance warning that this will be in the next manifesto. And if the people of Makerfield don’t want that, then they won’t re-elect him.

I understand why Nigel Farage is crowing about this being a U-turn - it’s because he can make political hay from it. But from the point of view of the electorate, would people really prefer a Prime Minister to never look again at something that was potentially damaging to our economy, just because being honest about it could harm him politically?!

(edited because I forgot to quote/ reply - sorry!)

So it’s the stinky you disagree with, not the rest of it?

It’s not to do with Farage. Burnham’s own words are clear.

Certainly more persuasive than their usual ones. No one wants a big old smell wafting across the world stage and showing us up in front of more fragrant politicians.

That's not what I said.

I thought he did a very good Churchill 😁 But yes he was an idiot.

But they all are really.

Most of the economists who have carried out recent studies point to 'Brexit uncertainty' as one of the main economic downsides of the referendum result. Burnham is propelling us yet again into a prolonged period of Brexit uncertainty, which will stifle investment - particularly in new growth areas such as AI. The UK's current regulatory approach to AI is considered more flexible and attractive than the EU's prescriptive and centralized approach. Similar problems with financial services - the city has evolved and unlikely to want to return to EU rules now.

Very limited and under certain conditions