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

Burnham probably didn't write his speech either. He'll have a team who do that for him.

My understanding is that Andy Burnham is actually unusual in that regard - it's definitely standard practice these days for senior politicians to have a team of speechwriters, but I believe he tends to write his own. It talks about it in The Times: Andy Burnham’s conference speech gives Labour its voice back

I do think that's part of why he connects with so many people - we've got so used to every idea being focus grouped to death, it's refreshing to hear someone talking in their own way, about ideas they seem to really believe in. I do think he's an unusually gifted communicator, and a remarkably intelligent man - but the big question for me is always going to be whether the government as a whole can actually deliver.

He's scrapping the triple lock to help pay for a national care service in England. I think that has to be emphasised. I don't live in England.

Its all going to depend on whether Labour get back in or not.

@ElsieMc ”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.”

That’s actually one of the top suggestions over in the Property/DIY forum on living in Victorian Houses over winter.

• @TallSturdyGirls I'm still trying to get through the rest of the speech. Starmer started the promise to build more houses
• 2024-25 ~199,300 new homes delivered (including ~190,600 new builds)
• 2023–24: ~221,070 new homes completed
• 2022–23: ~234,290 new homes completed

I'll believe it when those numbers approach the 300,000 that has been achieved in the past.

No. Given some posters are very resentful of the education previous generations had ( or a few of them ), I wanted to make the point that Tony Blair introduced this pile of rubbish idea that everyone should go, and the loans. I thought I made it clear in my post what I thought of it.
But people were sold a load of rubbish. And no, older people in 1997 were not uniquely responsible for his landslide. Hard to hear I realise. Lots of younger people voted for him. Who were young then.
18 year olds today had nothing to do with his landslide. And I agree Tony Blair sold people a load of garbage. But sadly, people did not question it enough. They were flattered by the idea their child was able enough to be going to go to university. Tony Blair understood this and exploited it.

Not every child can go to University. Not every child is academically able. Fine.
I feel for the young people who were told year after year they were brighter, more able and worked harder than those the year before. That nonsense had to finish. The Universities to this day ignore many qualifications. And do their own interviews and tests.
As for the loans. A disgrace. Someone somewhere should be bright enough to come up with a new financial model.
And stop please stop, telling everyone they can go to university. And stop asking every job to have a degree.

I suppose my post was also stop trying to blame old people almost automatically when they are sympathetic to the issues.

This. 💯

He’s got no mandate, and he just says what he thinks people want to hear.

Then does a U-turn when the next person wants to hear something different to what yesterday’s person wanted to hear.

I must react to communication styles very different to other people.

I hated it, he rubbed me right up the wrong way, it's not the style that brings me any confidence or happiness at all - quite the opposite.

Yes, no to re-join in Makerfield campaigning. Switch a few months later. Stylistically I’m with @RedPony1it does the opposite.

I'd like to ask another question about this - he has said that it will be modelled on the Scottish system. Does this mean that Scottish pensioners are having the triple lock removed in order to fund something in England that Scotland already funds itself?

Yes. John Swinney said this this morning.

There are plenty of other ways Burnham could put money in people's pockets than scrapping tax on VAT. That's derisory particularly if you are a low user of fuel which many poor people are

Probably the same people who thought adding VAT to private school fee's was going to fund thousands more teachers 😂

I was very impressed.

It was bold and Labour are in a position to be bold in changes they make I just hope this words are put into action

Most taxable benefits don't reach the threshold. PIP is non taxable. A list of taxable benefits is on the government website.

I thought it was to his credit that he didn't slag off his current political rivals in his speech.

He didn't say that changes to the triple lock (it's not bring abolished because the earning element will still be included, in a way not specified) would fund social care completely. He also referred to savings in the NHS as a result of getting 9n top of social care, and options in Louise Casey's soon-to-be-published review.

As a total irrelevant aside, what is that song they played at the beginning? I know what it is, I can him the rest of the tune in my head but I can't for the life of me think what it is!

It is called "All together now". I think it's by a Liverpool band but I can't remember the name.

All together now by the Farm. Great tune! Surprised it was a Liverpool band not a Manc one. Very on brand for his messaging though!

The triple lock reduction won’t pay for the social care - by a long way.

I feel cross subsidies should be stopped. This also seems to happen in day centres - we were quoted a ridiculous amount for this for DM for six hours in a day centre much more than I was paying for my toddlers 10 hour day at nursery (before the free places existed). Plus if she needed transport the cost doubled and she would need to be ready two hours before and not get home for at least two hours after and they couldn't guarantee times.
When we looked at care homes the cost of the full private luxury care home wasn't that much more than the good but basic mixed resident home nearby where the council was paying a lot less per room. But we had to consider what would happen when the money ran out.

Its not just loans that make the cost of going to uni extortionate. Its the housing companies that profit off said students as well. Students being charged over a grand a month for accommodation. I didn't vote labour because of Tony Blair. I voted because I had had enough of the Tory party

No, I didn't watch the speech. Who cares how well he delivered it, if he cried or didn't use notes? WTF cares about that.

He has just done his first massive U turn by bringing rejoining the EU onto the table. This is the biggest proof for me that he doesn't have the first fucking clue what he's doing, he doesn't have the remotest grasp of the basics and is just making stuff up to make people feel good.

I fear for the future as things are going to get a lot worse

In an area of Scotland that was hollowed out by the decline of shipbuilding is where I grew up.
Yet still plenty of people benefitted from council home purchases. Not knocking that but recognising the leg up it gave a lot of folk. As OAPs now they have benefitted from equity gains which are inconceivable now.

A high proportion are also still employed in public sector, and - judging by my local council experiences - with a questionable work ethic and a gold plated pension.