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

It’s not pensioners job blocking that’s causing the current problems though- it’s not one or other other. It’s also chronic underinvestment in our young people.

But you can’t as a society just put all your focus on elderly people- and that’s what’s happened in a systemic way for years under the tories.

@Raiderofthelostbattenburg the cost of government borrowing goes up the more they borrow. In that situation it would be more sensible to borrow less and therefore pay less. But they persistently borrow more to try to buy support.

What’s the old saying? ‘Talk is cheap’.

He said a lot, and said nothing.
He’d like to do things. We should talk about things. We must hope for a better future. We want to do stuff, but not now, for now is not the time.
He won’t do anything radical, and the Labour back benches won’t let him if he tries.
At the moment it’s all promises. When will the excuses start?

True. You can’t, but then you can’t just expect millions of jobs to appear from nowhere. We have massive numbers of NEETS at the momrrnt, so why is the government not concentrating on creating jobs for them? Yes students are encouraged to go to uni, because there is nothing else for them is there.

Surely reducing the true lick to a double lock will not save that much money? After all there will only be savings in years when the average salary has increased by more than inflation and more than 2.5%. How often does that happen? I thought the whole country was complaining g that salaries are not keeping pace with cost of living increases.

Alan Milburn is doing a massive review of NEETS so stuff is happening. Along with an acknowledgment that the system is failing our young people. There is a focus on council housing too- another important piece of the puzzle.

The media frenzy around the triple lock just drives me mad - it’s been like let’s make sure the pensioners are centre while the rest of the country burns. A lot of pensioners (and I know not all) have excellent pensions- my parents are an example of this. Yet their grandkids are saddled with student debt etc and are starting life in a position way worse than they did.

I totally understand and accept that point. But at the moment, I don’t have any faith that any of the other political parties would borrow less in reality. I haven’t heard a coherent economic vision from any of them - tax cuts cost money too, as do badly-thought through cuts, because they cost shift elsewhere (look at Sure Start - cut out of knee-jerk populism, only for independent research to later show it saved more money than it cost).

I am really not some die-hard, vote-for-them-no-matter-what Labour supporter, and in terms of the next election, my plan was (and may still be) anyone Reform but I do believe in pragmatism over populism, and in problem solving over party political point scoring.

Andy Burnham’s speech massively impressed me, and I think he’s a much, much more skilled leader than any of the others currently on offer.

Of course it was just one speech though, and I’m well aware the proof will be in the pudding. I may be back to cursing the whole lot of them soon!

It's just all words though isn't it?

I mean Boris was great with words. And look at the giant shit show that happened there.

I'm so done with these ego-driven men and their catchy phrases and the speed they can convince the gullible British public.

I nearly lost my dinner when I saw the photos of Rayner smirking and making hand signals.

And it very much looked like he indicated getting rid of the triple lock would then pay for care homes and that's bollocks.

I just don't believe any of them any more. Life is just getting worse for everyone.

But I’d rather have Andy’a positive, hopeful, solution focussed words than Nige’s anti immigrant racist words of hate and division.

This.
I doesn’t feel me with hope.

Do tell us then what fills you with hope. Give us some alternative solutions to the care crisis. Tell us your plans.

It's a double lock Instead of a triple lock, plus the myriad other benefits pensioners get- free bus passes, free prescriptions etc make up most of the massive benefits bill. Most pensioners statistically are wealthy enough to stop working. We simply can't afford the Triple lock which is the bottom line. It will bankrupt the country. It would have had to go sometimes. I never expected to get it and I don't expect my children to even be able to retire with a state pension.

I like Andy Burnham and think he’s a great communicator. However, whilst the speech as very rousing and easy to listen to, I didn’t find anything of substance.

I appreciate he can’t go into specific details but I do not see how he can do what he has vaguely promised without hiking up taxes again and pushing us further into debt.

I feel like AB is a prime minister for easy times not tough ones.

It was great if you prefer a temporary boost - a bit like really enjoying eating a McDonalds and then waking up the next morning and thinking yeah that maybe it wasn't so nutritious and good for me after all.

Why? He made little mention of defence (in case no-one noticed we're already in an unspoken war with Russia), immigration (which because of high levels of legal immigration, the small boats and a broken asylum system is now creating real fractures in social cohesion) or the soaring welfare bill which we can't afford (not to mention whole lives wasted, devoid of challenge and meaningful work, a route to purpose and dignity).

Why didn't he mention any of those things? The man is a coward. You know it, we all know it, he surely knows it. But the Labour Party cheers him on anyway.

I find it utterly depressing that so many people in this country can't seem to see Labour for what they are. If people vote for them again they will deserve what they get, just a shame for everyone else who will be dragged down with them.

Or…. We found reduce benefits for those of working age, and stop all benefits for those (not including the disabled) who have never contributed…., why does that never gone up?

Why is it on this forum if you say you're not impressed with Labour, all the Labour supporters pipe up with stuff about other parties?

I'm no Reform supporter FFS. I'm an immigrant.

I'm not impressed with any of them, they are all full of shit and they all work for the banks.
We all do now, this country is bankrupt.

I will also say I am glad that he’s said the rejoin the EU part out loud too.

Everyone complains how bad things are but no one acknowledges the enormous elephant in the room which is that life is considerably worse since Brexit.

We are poorer and our young people have less opportunity.

Am so glad Burnham acknowledged that and I would vote to rejoin in a heartbeat.

He didn’t say it would.
He also talks a lot (including on R4 yesterday) about how there’s no quick fix because the damage has been so slow (my paraphrasing not his words).
The country is worse of because of many incremental things, like the fact that council houses were sold off meaning that housing benefit is now so high and so many people are at the mercy of the private rental market. That by fixing these things we’re looking at an improvement within the decade, not the week. But by NOT improving them, things will just keep getting worse.

He’s planting now ready for harvest later.

I generally dislike Labour and absolutely detested them under Kier Starmer, they have made my life harder in various ways.
But I like Andy Burnham.

Because I am bored of people complaining.

Someone comes along with some positive ideas and it’s still not good enough.

People just want to moan about how bad things are, blame immigrants and slag off politicians. Endlessly. And not listen to ideas or solutions.

Also he’s saying he wants to unwind neoliberalism. And re join the EU. And not be in hock to the bond markets. All the things that people have issues with.

I suspect we'll have to do both, and I didn't agree with removing the 2 child benefit cap, but the benefits bill is over half made up of pensions. Working people are being hammered both sides by people who don't want to work and pensioners. some of whom also never worked then went straight onto the State pension. Other people also need to take the burden and pensioners have been protected for a very long time.

I do like him but we are in hock to the bond markets because we owe them trillions of £££. It's like saying ' I don't want to be in hock to my mortgage provider'. That's fine but they will ask for their money back. If he doesn't want to be in hock to the bond markets he needs to slash government borrowing and demonstrate stability so that our interest rates come down. That is definitely a sound byte.

I have cautious hope. The care system needs sorting as the lack of it could bring down the NHS as the boomers age. I am dubious about the maths but the maths aren’t appropriate for a speech.

The main thing that terrifies me about Burnham is lack of engagement over climate change. None of these social policies will work if we’re potentially dealing with food shortages, natural disasters etc etc

You're bored of people complaining? 😂 Tough shit.

People have every right to complain, we are being run into the ground.

He side stepped so many issues but because he made a nice speech everyone should forget just how shit things are and support lovely Andy.

If you really think anything will get better I have a bridge you can buy.

@Throwaway380 ’The main thing that terrifies me about Burnham is lack of engagement over climate change.’

The UK could go climate neutral today and it will not make a blind bit of difference to climate change.

Political claptrap. It will never be delivered, just like a thousand other promises that have never been delivered.
The war on crime.
The war on drugs.
Just take a look at the streets of today across the UK> All those promises................fulfilled?