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

I'm not sure what people think these people are doing. They have paid thousands to people traffickers. They are paying it back working illegally and/or in the drugs trade, prostitution etc.

Good on style, (excluding the narcissistic crap about family), mostly shite on content.

The IFS is saying the triple lock change is welcome but how much money will be generated for spending elsewhere is difficult to estimate. Care plans are very very limited and many will still need to sell their homes if they need residential care. Lastly - there’s not enough workers to do extensive care in the home. Generally this saving won’t pay for free care of the elderly.

I agree, the triple lock is unaffordable, so cutting it to a double lock won't actually free up any money to pay for anything else, surely?

Wasnt the triple lock brought in as an emergency sticking plaster as pensioners were receiving 16% of the then national salary. I can also recall means tested care services commencing, when many older adults cancelled their care packages. Cannot recall who the government was but sure it wasnt Labour.

Martin Lewis on TV today not supportive of this move, and suggesting with the rise in the energy cap due soon pensioners should wear heated waistcoats. Really, what have we come to.

So, I guess we are returning to the previous status quo funded by the billion or so savings from ending the triple lock. But the residential care issue remains largely unaddressed with no detailed plan.

Yes Burnhams a better speaker than his predecessor but it was what he didnt touch on that was the issue.

Have a look at why the plans and considerable work on a national care service in Scotland collapsed at tell us why you think this will be any different. Hint - it won't.

He would also have an issue using government money to pay for your healthcare….so there’s that.

To be fair, the SNP couldn’t run a bath let alone a national care service, it’s no surprise they’ve fucked that up.

What, the tories that I just mentioned directly?

It’s similar to Scotland and the nhs care package/ Social service care package

probably 4 visits a day which will probably just be checking your not dead yet

Deliver what though? that's my point - he hasn't told us he will delivery anything which I think really needs to be delivered now.

I think he is a coward because he has ducked the most pressing and most difficult issues - defence, asylum and welfare. I really believe these are the most urgent problems facing the country - the first two are vital to nation security and freedom, the third is pivotal to tax rises and public debt (which is huge and we're paying eye watering sums to service it)

It's easy to get applause and warm wishes talking about homelessness and social care (both very important I wouldn't deny that but for me they're not priorities and can only involve spending more money we haven't got). Rejoining the EU - on what planet could we possibly hope to get a good deal re-entering the EU now? (I voted remain by the way and I think Brexit is a mistake but any focus on rejoining would be a huge distraction - we've spent years focusing on how to get out)

To govern is to choose. His choices show he hasn't got what it takes to tackle the issues head on. For transparency I voted Labour at the last election - they are a huge disappointment to me.

But these were all discussed the day before by John Healy in his speech and will be given detail in the budget, as is the norm. That's the way government works.

Also, seriously, anyone that accuses a man of Crocodile tears, a man that lost his father two weeks ago and has his funeral in 3 days, has a very low level of empathy.

The state pension should not be means tested. You need a longer run in for that to happen as people even in their late 20s would need to know to plan.

Re care- this should be, and is, means tested. And yes I do think that means that Frank may have to sell his house if he is unlucky enough to get Alzheimer's and end up in a care home. For Frank's relatives, that means that his assets will be eaten up - so no inheritance. The alternative is the state pays for Frank's care so the family gets to keep their inheritance. I don't see why working people should pay to maintain inheritance for Frank's kids.

The normal snap back on this is well Bill has never worked and he gets the same as Frank. Yup. But right now working people only pay for Bill. The answer isn't to double the expense and pay for Frank too.

If he was really brave he’d privatise the NHS, strengthen our national defence, create a task force to strategically look at the holistic problems of an aging population, restore proper law and order, and throw everything this country has at building up education and the economy.

You go anywhere in the world that has a nice quality of life, it’s usually because there is robust law and order and people have freedom to safely be a community.

Everything has gone to shit here because people are allowed to get away with anything - corruption, misogny, shoplifting, fly tipping, electoral fraud, benefits cheating, illegal immigration, child abuse etc etc with no real consequences, even if it gets to court! What kind of third world shit hole does that? The UK.

But yeah, just give the pensioners a kicking, that’ll do.

I have been disappointed too. But I am willing to give Burnham a chance. I don't like what he did to get here, but he's here now.

@Screamingabdabz but the pensioners are not getting a kicking. Removing one part of the triple lock yet increasing the level of care provision is a fair trade. The pensions bill is unsustainable, life expectancy has increased far beyond what the system was designed to provide for. And care needs have increased with it.

i do however agree with the rest of your post 👍

Remember the phrase "once a Catholic....." He may not be be a mass attender but some things get ingrained.

So?

I mostly agree with you on this and I have a relative in Frank’s position. The only slightly galling thing is it becomes apparent that the self-funders are cross-subsidising those on the council rate in the same home. So self-funders are paying more for the same service. That doesn’t seem quite fair to me.

I also don’t have a lot of sympathy for the ‘we worked hard’ pensioner brigade who got a free university education while our young people are being completely shafted.

@Hereinmyarms could not agree more. Young adults today have been properly shafted 😢

Even pensioners agree with ending the triple lock.

eta: screenshot is a bit fuzzy, here's the source:

https://www.survation.com/where-will-the-public-land-on-andy-burnhams-triple-lock-changes-and-national-care-service-plans/

He has now had to get involved. Because of course he was the Mayor of Manchester. He arguably should not. But has made comments about how awful it would be if the Saudi owners of Manchester City were turfed out and found not to be ‘fit and proper’ people to own a club under the FA rules. He should pipe down.

Next, of course, he says they were instrumental in pouring money into Manchester as a city, not just the club.
Next of course, a journalist asks the obvious question as to whether his own involvement with the Saudi’s would stand up to any scrutiny. He says it would.

Not good. You don’t pour money into a City or a club for nothing expected in return.

Didnt watch the speech but inspired by the thread started to watch it, didnt get very far. Zero chance of getting dh to watch. I'm politically homeless and not going to vote for a party of fantasists that doesnt protect women's rights. I may not vote at all in the next election. Dh says he's unlikely to vote as no-one worth voting for. We've always voted, even in most local elections. Burnham did well as mayor of Manchester so I'll give him time but I care about actions not words.

The removal of the 2 child benefit cap was a mistake. Cutting WFP for all pensioners was a mistake, then returning it at too high an income level was a bigger one. Triple lock has to go sometime but it needs to be with other measures to reduce debt. There needs to be a much bigger push on housing and on targeting energy saving measures at people who are not on benefits but not much above that level. Renters Rights Act is a bit of a disaster, lots of landlords selling up and rents increasing.

When he talks about what Labour built after 1945 maybe he could remember it was those who are pensioners now who built a good country. It fell apart with Thatcher making greed respectable and selling off anything she could to fund tax cuts and right to buy. A sensible country would have invested the profits from North Sea oil in energy saving and house building.

Few pensioners got a free university education because most pensioners didnt go to university.

Oh they were real tears. But if he hadn't put his father into his speech he probably wouldn't have shed them at that point.