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

While I do absolutely accept that economics is an imperfect science,I hope you'll forgive me for thinking that the widespread consensus amongst experts in the field has a little more credibility than random posters on MN whose credentials are unknown.

The consensus is not as great as you think and the ex Greek Finance Minister and economist Yanis Varoukis is scathing about the claims and says they are based on a cherry picked set of countries that were growing from a very low base.

unherd.com/2026/07/dont-fall-for-project-smear-mr-burnham/?set_edition=en&tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5B0%5D=18743&tl_period_type=3&utm_source=UnHerd+Today&utm_campaign=1cd2f0f4b6-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2026_07_23_10_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_79fd0df946-1cd2f0f4b6-75148631

He’s a provincial mayor masquerading as a prime minister. Utterly utterly useless. Always has been and always will be. In any other world he’d be the deputy manager of an Asda somewhere jn the Midlands. I so look forward to the public being able to deliver their verdict.

I thought I addressed that section of the quote in my first reply, apologies if I didn’t.

To my mind, “I respect the decision that was made at the referendum and it is going to undermine everything I have said about strengthening democracy if we don’t respect that” means that it would undemocratic to re-join the E.U or even to hold another referendum without a mandate. He isn’t doing that. In fact, he’s explicitly saying he is going to seek a democratic mandate to re-open the conversation. I don’t see that as a u-turn on the quote.

Because if it is, what are we saying? That we’re never, ever going to look again at the possibility of re-joining the E.U, no matter how strong the economic case in favour? Surely no serious politician can be saying that? (I know Farage might be, but to me, he doesn’t count as a serious politician)

You're being silly now. I'd hardly call Manchester 'provincial'.

We get it, you don't like the guy - who do you like as PM?

We have literally just left. We should not be spending the next ten years trying to negotiate our way back in. Why can’t remainers just respect the outcome of the vote? It’s extraordinary.

Manchester is very much provincial.

No that’s a major switch in a short time frame. He needs to use words that mean something not just flip, especially since you’ve said he has always wanted to re-join.

It means I’ll give as much weight to declarations on an early GE and the euro, which are also major factors.

So are your opinions it seems going by your posts.

Who would you like to be PM?

3 years is a long time in politics but it’s hard to see a left coalition. There’s never been one, at least post war. The UK is historically a right of centre voting country. I mean the only reason Labour is in power is thanks to Reform splitting the right vote. Starmer got less votes than Corbo! Burnham is right to call for electoral reform as FPTP denies too many a voice. Although the irony is very obvious.

I do hope Farage is denied PM as would be a disaster. But he’s still powerful and could again try to do a deal with the Tories to deny the left. And he is financially well backed by the elite.

Take your pick of time bombs from Burnham’s cabinet. It’s only a matter of time before a scandal breaks and the Burnham bounce becomes a Burnham bomb.

We had a duly elected prime minister who had a mandate from the public via a landslide general election result and, more importantly, was actually chosen by Labour members. Burnham stood twice to be Labour leader and each time we were absolutely clear that we did not want him. But instead of respecting that, Burnham schemed his way into power by undermining Kier Starmer at every opportunity and then dodging another membership vote. He is a grubby opportunist who changes his political positions every half hour. I think the public will see him for what he is.

3 years is a long time in politics but it’s hard to see a left coalition. There’s never been one, at least post war

There was a confidence and supply agreement.

I would really like to know the nature of the bombs you are predicting. Care to elaborate?

@EasternStandard I totally respect that point of view - although I don’t share it.

(it’s not me saying he’s always been a re-joiner by the way, he’s always said it himself, and has never attempted to backtrack or deny it - which I personally respect)

I think it’s more likely that Labour would try to govern as a minority with support from other parties such as the Lib Dems and Greens, but not in formal coalition. It would probably prevent them from pursuing any of the major policies that Burnham is now putting forward and that in itself is a blessing. I’d predict a year or two of Labour floundering and then the public will lose patience. They’ll be another election and Labour will be consigned to the wilderness for a generation.

This!

Burnham’s plan entails a fiscal transfer from the retired to the retired.

He also envisages a whole new arm of the welfare state for them, modelled on the NHS. (That is the NHS which is forever in need of being “saved”, according to Labour. A perverse thing to emulate, but there we are.)

As the pension reform is small and the social care plan big, there is an implied tax rise, not a cut.

That’s very metropolitan elitist if you and tells me all I need to know.

With respect it’s not supposed to.
At last someone has the balls to raise contentious issues. They may never come to pass but they surely never will if nobody talks about them.

AB's speech was good and he has a talent to connect with audience. He was saying a lot of nice things, but he didn't say anything about economic growth. So this is all completely pointless until we see how he's going to pay for this all.

The speech which I'm really interested in is John Healey's one on 28th October.

He has to raise taxes big way to try to control bond markets, this is even before he can say how he's going to pay for AB's plans grandiose.

If Healey doesn't do this on 28th, then it's a clear sign that we're going to have election in 2027. And I really pray for hung parliament as the best scenario we can possibly have in this mess.

It’s the metropolitan elite who subsidise the rest of the nation. Burnham would do well not to forget that.

A hung parliament will be a mess though, if it’s a left coalition it doesn’t avoid market issues.

Oh, that's novelty.

They said that private school VAT will fund 6500 new teachers and improve state education. More than 30,000 PS kids moved to state, many PS schools closed. Where are new teachers?

Now they did say that abolishing triple lock will fund social care. But oopsie, it wasn't supposed to??

Immigrants come to the UK for many reasons.
Education
Work
Family ties
Safety from conflict
HTH.

Bloomberg are not the only ones looking at this!

Yes, I know - I was comparing estimates in my post. I could have mentioned the pro-Brexit economists who estimate 0% - 1%. I chose Bloomberg because they backed remain in the referendum, donating £250,000 to the remain campaign.

And would we truly not want a 2% uplift to the economy?

Is that guaranteed? In what way will we see the benefits? Lower taxes? Return of the pension triple lock?

I think Bloomberg also said their estimates could be lower (halved) with a better trading relationship with the EU, rather than actually rejoining.

Economic growth simply isn’t in their lexicon. They’re unable to grow the economy and unwilling to cut expenditure. This leaves them with the sole option of generating ever more tax revenue. It’s a cliche, but it is absolutely true that Labour eventually runs out of other peoples’ money.

I’m not a Burnham fan either but can we please let someone govern for more than five minutes before baying for their blood? What other candidate is there anyway? Only out for himself Nigel? Or Kemi who has backpedaled more than a Tour De France participant going the wrong way?

We have gotten into a terrible habit of giving someone five minutes before screaming that they need to go. We NEED stability and continuity, this merry go rounds of PMs is doing us severe damage. One of the reason many politicians do a shit job is because they’re constantly looking towards the next election instead of long term, we NEED long term policies to get us back to a good position.
I am willing to give Burnham the benefit of the doubt even though I don’t like him, give the man a bloody chance, he has years of bullshit to try and put right during incredibly difficult and unstable times in the world