What is going on with Andy Burnham's social media?

[msagent]

I swear every post I see is following a formula:

• personal anecdote
• link to current issue
• why this means I understand you
• how I'm going to change the world
• join us in doing so

The way they are written makes me cringe. Almost poetic and overly emotive. Maybe it just doesnt work on me.

Anyone else just want some normal?

I don’t know when things tipped over to feelings over facts, but they certainly did. I do think there is a difference between using emotive language to rouse people and this emphasis on feelings to get people onside. However, I need to think more on what the difference is as, to me, there is a difference. Maybe emotive language is more general and feelings is more personal?

When I think of feelings over facts, I immediately think of trans issues and biological reality. The two camps are talking two different languages. All I do know is that you can’t base laws around feelings (eg I feel like woman).

I personally think that the feelings bandwagon is more prevalent on the left.

What!

This is real. Surely not!

I thought it was a parody.

The PM wants you to get the 'feels' from lowering bus fares and electricity prices slightly, bring able to drink pints at football matches, making it easier to cancel subscriptions or contest a parking ticket.

He doesn't want you to notice that he's not going to do anything about the economy, illegal immigration, the unaffordable welfare Bill, defence spending or the NHS... To name but a few.

If you buy it, you're an idiot 👏. Enjoy the feels though.

I actually was thinking about that as I typed. But then again the WMDs were more of a feeling than fact weren’t they…

I agree about the trans activism, I think many of the current social justice issues have a lot of emotive and/or feeling language attached to them. I like your separation of emotive and feelings and need to be a bit more aware perhaps.

one thing I do know is that such constructs make it impossible to debate like normal adults when you have a factual perspective vs an emotional/feeling one.

TBH I think Blair was the first PM to go down this route of embarrassing sentimentality. It really took off with him when Diana died and he christened her ‘the people’s Princess’. The country went mad with mawkishness at the time. All that terrible public wailing and throwing flowers.

He has found a formula his supporters love. You can't really blame him for repeating it.

TBF I would definitely categorise dismissing people who have different political priorities than you as “idiots” rather than using your critical thinking skills to interrogate why the Prime Minister is so much more popular than his rivals, as an emotional rather than rational way to engage in political debate.

So, I don’t think it’s a left/ right wing thing.

When you read that post with his gran etc do you think it means people won’t have to sell their homes to fund care?

Genuinely, that’s a difficult question for me to answer, because I have quite a lot of personal knowledge of the care sector, and so it feels obvious to me that no government is ever going to be able to afford universal bed and board in care homes. And consistent, high quality personal care, free at the point of use, would be a life changing improvement from what we have now.

What I do think though is that the Prime Minister is absolutely right to make improving adult social care a priority, and I personally, on an emotional level, really like how articulately he speaks about his own family’s experiences of care. I like it when Ed Davies does this too, and I found it profoundly moving when David Cameron spoke about his own experiences caring for his son - I think it’s good for us, as a society, to be reminded politicians are real people too.

I mean to me it sounds like management jargon (STAR method tweaked for politics - Situation, Task, Action, Result).

But it will resonate with its intended older audience.

Ok so are you not concerned this is misleading?

‘Selling the family home. Watching savings disappear.’
and
’I won't let that carry on.’

He’s wrapped it in sentimentality which works for some not all, but that part looks not in line with just care in the home. How truthful are those two lines?

😄

He's going to stop pubs fining you if you get a letter wrong when you put your numberplate in. Well only £100 fine.

The little things don't matter at all. Until we have a thriving vibrant economy which isn't just selling coffee to each other we're doomed.

The economy is being squeezed beyond belief.

@EasternStandard - edited as forgot to quote, sorry!

I don’t personally think it is misleading, no - partly because earlier in the same paragraph he talks explicitly about personal care at home, and partly because my understanding is a majority of people receiving adult social care don’t live in residential care homes; they receive care at home, and the costs can be crippling. That’s been the experience of the care system I personally am bringing, and basing my understanding on.

But I do understand is a very complex area of policy making and that all of us will be viewing these policies through the prism of our own experience. That’s why I think it’s good the Prime Minister is so personally invested in this issue, and why it’s also good he’s so keen for it to a measured, pragmatic policy debate - hopefully with cross party agreement.

Ok so you take from that passage he’s only talking about selling a home for care at home and some may still have to sell their home for care out of the home.

Although if the elderly person is still in their home for care surely it’s hard to sell it and be in it.

Also the funding model for this is about as realistic as the NHS funding promised on the side of the Brexit bus

Poverty by association.

And the modest savings she'd built up over a lifetime, starting from that house? All taken to pay for it.

And yet here are Labour itching to tax workers out of their savings, pension and home to pay for the current "it".

Ironic that his grandmother’s savings being consumed by care costs are presented as an injustice, and protecting people’s homes and savings as an ambition. How does that reconcile with very vocal criticism of ordinary families passing wealth to their children through today’s ‘Bank of Mum and Dad’? Or inherited pension being taxed at between 50 and 87%? Should I really be able to ask tax payers to pay for my care, likely provided by a profit maximising investor back company, so my children can inherit my house?

Yes, agreed it’s impossible to have a constructive discussion.

I have thought more on the emotive versus feelings language used by people. Let me focus on politics. When politicians use emotive language they are trying to get you to react in a certain way eg leave campaign over Brexit, Blair with “people’s princess”. They set out to manipulate your emotions.

The feelings political camp are talking about their own feelings so that people get to understand where the politicians are coming from, and they hope that by expressing their feelings they can win the hearts and minds of their audience. Look at me I can relate to you because I feel the same about it as you do. Classic Burnham.

Both manipulations, but done differently. I think politics is changing precisely because people, especially younger people, are used to talking about their feelings and don’t think it’s unusual for politicians to behave this way.

1500 -2k a care a month

It is 1500 a week.

Well, yes because that is the policy, isn’t it? No one is going to have to sell their home to pay for personal care. And obviously personal care being funded will also bring down the costs of residential care - people will only be paying for their bed and board. The policy will, I imagine, also keep many people in their own homes for much longer, again making you less likely to ever need to sell your home. Like I say - from my own experience, that would’ve been life changing, which might be why the Prime Minister’s wording feels both clear and emotionally resonant to me.

Yet many people did misunderstand it, especially the way he wrapped it up. You will find many posters on threads on here and across the internet gutted to find out it was not for care home costs.

I think he’s just trying to be approachable tbh

I read that earlier and found it frustrating because of the lack of detail. And yes it was a bit X Factor tragic backstory for my taste.

I keep hearing all these initiatives that I'm broadly for - tackling headphone dodgers, not allowing unfair parking fines etc and I'm torn; actually I do think this stuff has a impact on people's lives; it matters. But I can't help wondering why the PM's name is attached to it when he has more important things to sort. Leadership is as much about effective delegation, so why is his name put against this stuff. For spin. I mean, fair enough, doing the opposite didn't exactly work for Starmer.

I agree with the poster who said it's all a bit too much about feelings. But then humans aren't that's rational.

Yes, I do appreciate that - we’re all going to be viewing this policy through very personal lenses. It’s a notoriously complex and emotive policy area. But I do think that is why it is good that Andy Burnham is beginning a conversation about this now, when public opinion of him is high and he has political goodwill. I also think that’s why it’s good his seeking cross party support on the legislation.