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

No I did not.

i genuinely can’t look at him, I find his smug and full of himself behaviour repulsive. Soooooo pleased with himself. He’s like Boris Johnson but from Labour. 🤮

(yes I’m still pissed about the coup)

I’m glad Starmer’s gone but I can’t listen either. To any of them.

Yes, it was incredible

He’s economically illiterate as are huge chunks of the electorate hence why some poorly informed individuals support him.

He and his party pray on ignorance and it appears to work as most who support them appear to be totally incapable of critical assessment of anything that is said.

As one notable political commentator once said, treating the electorate like idiots or children appears to be a good strategy.

It’s not just about reducing our emissions, it’s about dealing with what is coming for us. It’s about adaptations and shoring up our energy security. How many people died over the summer from heat? Our hospitals are not adapted, our schools are not adapted. At some point there is going to be major flooding. We’re already seeing major impacts on food prices and security and our supply chains are ridiculously vulnerable.

Also, not just based on fear, green tech has come on so fast, much faster than anyone can have predicted. There are massive opportunities for jobs and expertise. I’d rather have a robust energy system than potentially looking at diesel shortages meaning emergency use only thanks to the orange madman in the White House.

Let’s hope Burnham does something to help business then to get these green energy jobs rolling.

About people during from heat, I am sure by the end of the year, the expected death count is steady. That’s to say, these people were on their last legs anyway, the heat just finished them off weeks earlier.
No, I’m not a monster, just stating a statistic.

well that certainly started not with him but with Brexit

Nice speech, nice words, designed to rally the troops. Can he deliver is what the electorate need to ask. 9 years in Manchester and achieved what exactly?

I must have been watching a different speech.

Heavy on sentimentality, light on ideas.

The big social care innovation is what, a glorified Meals on Wheels?

Yes it depends what he means by National Care Service. What is the scope of that. Will it cover the total costs of everyone in care homes so they don’t have to sell their houses and use up all their savings until they are left with £23k. My relative’s care home is £1300 a week. And that’s not on the high side.

We can all see how bad things are. Years of Tory austerity have hollowed out the country. Now he’s trying to offer some answers and I admire him for that. He’s not blaming immigrants and grifting millions- he’s trying to build council houses, reform care. I would rather hear that.

I agree with all this, and it was one of the reasons I voted Labour in 2024, because they said they would invest in the infrastructure we need for all of those things- green energy, pharmaceuticals, stem, housebuilding etc to make us more self sufficient. But all they did is launch into the same silly games and infighting from the beginning, staged a coup, gerrymandered local government reorganisation costing local authoritiescmillions that they don't have, cut FE budgets and spent more on short term benefits rises so that there is just no money for any of that, and no way we are going to get it. China are streets ahead in renewables but they have the money mainly because they burn fossil fuels at an alarming rate to make stuff to sell to us. We need to have UK energy security which means nuclear, which we mothballed, and by selling and using our own oil and gas, which Norway does in order to pay for their own green economy. We just seem to be in a death spiral. I haven't had an hour to watch the speech in full ( but I will) but short term ' hope' and a good speech won't fix all that.

What about the previous government?
How did that go?

Actually he achieved quite a lot. Try googling.

Meanwhile in the real world, the honest, hardworking people are still getting punctures from potholes, the streets are full of shit, the high street is run by gangs, the smell of cannabis hangs in the air, diesel is at £2 a litre, food increased 25%, scooters with L plates zoom around with their latest delivery of take away or drugs, not to mention E-bikes and scooters. fly tipping is on the increase and those boats still keep coming and the illegal population cost £12b allegedly but lets fuck the pensioner to pay for it. And god help it if a pensioner falls over, they may have to wait a few hours for the ambulance to get to them, followed by a 12 hour wait in A&E.
And all before you start on the NHS, Education, Defence, Police and other services. Civil Service, Infrastructre, As is usual from a politician. Words that are full of shit!!

Well we pay 100 billion a year in debt interest alone so ending the triple lock won't save us I'm afraid to say. We are in massive debt and we should stop trying to ignore it.

This is a major issue.

Nobody has mentioned Brexit (rejoining EU) yet. As I posted on one of the new Brexit threads:

If Burnham keeps talking about this (Brexit), it'll be the final nail in the coffin for Labour. He'll hand the next election to Reform.

I voted to Remain (Wales), but a lot of things have moved on since then. Would rejoining the EU mean we will lose all our recent gains re women's rights, for example?

Be careful what you wish for.

Sorry, I posted before I saw you had mentioned Brexit!

RESTORE or Reform

I thought Starmer was bad enough, but Burnham is even worse- cannot stand the man. What really annoyed me were the faux crocodile tears - put on to gain sympathy. And yes, I am sorry his father died, but a political conference is not the time nor the place for such things.

I suspect more people would vote for him for this reason than not. Brexiteers are increasingly becoming a very loud minority. Re womens rights, yes this is my only concern. Burnham is good but I think a lot of the new Labour MPs are dreadful and need to go.

Free house and benefits

A forest of lovely tall shiny towers that only rich people can afford to live in, is the opinion of a lot of grass roots Mancunians.

The buses and trams are good, I'll give him that.

It was a terrific speech. I love his conviction and admire his drive. I'll eat my hat if he can deliver it. We can't continue to borrow to fund these dreams forever.

The man is a coward.

Is he? He has been brave enough to end the triple lock, which other PMs have not been brave enough to do.

He set out what he plans to do to reduce the welfare bill.

As you say, he mentioned immigration, more than once.

As for defence, let's see what the budget says.

It was a good speech. Why not give him a chance now to deliver? If he doesn't, then he'll be booted out at the next GE. I hope he succeeds.