Andy Burnham is just a dumbed down version of Starmer

[WarmHiker]

Just caught a snippet of some confident sounding commentator on tv repeating a line that you tend to hear in all news programmes. That Burnham is personable and has charisma. That line is starting make me think that as a country, the tyranny of low expectations has really hit a new low.

First thing’s first, when did saying ‘isn’t it’ after every sentence pass for charisma. Is the bar for charisma really that low.

Second, the guy’s failed upwards into a job that he’s clearly not fit for. His answer to everything is ‘Booses’.

The economy is on fire, buses. Immigration is out of control, buses. Crime is a problem, buses. We have the most expensive energy, buses. Industry and businesses are shutting down, buses.

He’s basically a small town mayor who accidentally became the prime minister because the quality of talent in parliament is non existent. Manchester is not a small town but running buses in Manchester doesn’t make you fit to be a PM. He was a failed health secretary, failed to be Labour leader twice when he actually had to have proper fight, somehow grifted his way to a mayor job for a decade. And yes his predecessors were any better. But why all the fawning over Burnham.

AIBU to think that we are headed towards a point soon when the public turns on him. He’s utterly out of his depth and the false shine will wear off in no time. A General election is looming.

All in all, so sad to see that this is the calibre of person at the top of government. What has happened to this country that no one smart wants to go anywhere politics.

@swimsongas funny as a root canal treatment.

‘But…the Tories’ is a fine argument, as one must make comparisons amongst the realistic alternatives.

Perhaps you think Reform is one? I will remind readers that it is the object of a large, complex criminal investigation. It is bracing for the Parliamentary Standards decision on Nigel Farage’s acceptance of an undeclared gift of £5M with a shady background, and one of Farage’s former key aides (Nathan Gill, former head of Reform in Wales) is serving a jail sentence of 10 years for accepting Russian bribes. The sentencing judge at the Old Bailey all but called him a traitor.

I hope we have not come to the point when a political party that does not put the interests of the UK first is a viable alternative.

Thanks to @TallSturdyGirls for reminding everyone that Burnham and his team are developing plans to tackle the mess that is social care, one of the most important domestic problems of our time. It seems many on this thread, including OP, may have been unaware of that.

His team is also reforming secondary and post secondary education to bring more young people into work, and shifting support for young adults from welfare to training as far as practicable to reduce the number of NEETS.

The man communicates well. He has the gift of speaking effectively with the common touch. Perhaps we are so unused to this in a prime minister - Boris Johnson was the last one with this gift, and before him Tony Blair - that people who dislike him confuse it with shallowness?

@WarmHiker ,

‘They’re soundbites, not policies.’

What do you mean by that? They are indicating his preferred direction of travel. He clearly can’t come in and enact fully costed policies within a couple of months of starting.

Also, coming in mid term, he can’t dramatically veer away from the manifesto that Labour was elected on. He will need to be reelected to enact radical change.

Who do you think had sounder actual policies?

No. They are policies - Cost of living - removing VAT from domestic energy bills and the £2 bus fare cap, Rough sleeping - £442M package announced on 18 August, and his Greater Manchester scale inittiatove in the area was very successful Structural reform - Opening of No 10 North, seconding out of civil servants to the Mayoral strategic authorities to build capacity and coming reformulation of the business rate and a detailed plan of technical education measures to be rolled out from 2028. Give the guy an chance. He's only been in 3 months.

In other news…. Heathrow 3rd runway is now as good as dead as a project, so says the boss of heat Heathrow. While Amsterdam and Frankfurt over take London as European hubs taking billions out of the UK economy. So the emissions will happen anyway, the flights will fly anyway, but at least the UK can feel good (and poor) about itself. And the Burnham thinks that the hub airport has nothing to do with him…..because apparently you can take a bus to New York instead.

Microsoft abandoned the data centre project due to energy shortfalls taking billions in investment elsewhere. So the data will centre will get built anyway, the emissions will happen anyway, but another country will get the tax revenue and jobs.

Anf it’s ok that billionaires leave because they are bad people. Never mind that the median earnings of the taxpayer is reducing showing that the bad billionaires and evil millionaires are taking their evil tax dollars with them.

Jack Daw will run out of gas in 10 years. Rosebank which makes an actual difference to energy production and UK tax take, is all but as good as refused. Because let the rest of the world produce oil instead. The warm glow of poverty makes up for it.

oh and the one thing we were actually good at….education standards per the league tables, is being dumbed down because according to Labour it makes kids feel bad if other kids are cleverer than them.

So there you have it. Everything is good because Burnham cares about the little things. Becoming an irrelevant and poor country is more than offset by something or other about parking fines.

I am waiting to see what next week's budget will bring and if it is true that his is a cost of living government... or whether he is as useless as 'Never Here Kier' and that awful Rachel Thieves destroying small businesses and stifling growth.

I think the problem lies in politicians being massively overpaid (not to mention that everything is on expenses) which has made them completely out of touch with the general public. They should all be on the national median wage and facing the challenges the rest of us face - then they might start looking at ways to improve things for everybody.

Why do you think it is AI? AI doesn't write like this at all. It doesn't express opinions in this particular way. It wouldn't write the Manchester accent phonetically. It also wouldn't use commas in the way the OP has used them and doesn't do typos which change the meaning of sentences.

A lot of real humans don't think Andy Burnham is very good or that there is much substance to him.

All of that is worth about £1.79 per year for the average household. Maybe £1.80 if you give him the benefit of the doubt. So using the word policy is really stretching it a bit. Tyranny of low expectations.

In defence of Andy Burnham he faces exactly the same challenges that Starmer did.

Debt and the deficit are at record highs, the yields of Government debt are at record highs (worse than under Liz Truss which is really going some).

He can't cut spending because the labour back benchers won't allow him to. He can't increase taxation without slowing the economy further (as shown in Reeves NI increase). And he certainly can't increase debt much more without yields going higher.

In the words of Chancellor John Healey the government is spending £1 in every £10 on debt interest, arguing that the bill is now larger than spending on Defence, the Home Office and Justice combined.

This puts Andy Burnham in an impossible position.

In criticism of him he thinks the answer is more spending by the State when it's exactly this that has got us into this mess of managed economic decline.

Its no confidence that the French economy is in the shape it is when French Government spending makes up 57% of GDP.

In praise of Andy Burnham he does much better social media posts and image than Starmer ever did.

im Still in disbelief he’s the pm.

tagging himself to the rage people feel when some muppet is playing screen noise on the bus was a brilliant move 🤣🤣🤣

Can we not stop whinging and get behind the prime minister for 5 minutes? I hope I'd still say that if it was a new Tory or Lib Dem PM who had recently come to power.

One person can only do so much. They can't immediately solve every one of the UK's issues, many of which are caused by global problems or would cost loads of money, all without raising any taxes.

@1dayatatime I agree, he inherited this.

But he’s show already that he has no ideas. To your point, better social media posts and picking parish council issues and rebranding them as ‘I’m a man of the people’ rhetoric, absolutely does nothing to solve what he walked into. He was t blind, he could see what the size of the task was and what needs to be done. But he lacks the intellect and the backbone to do anything about it.

This

I mean to be fair, you didn’t even articulate that comment correctly.

I don’t think you’re a bot, or AI, or even necessarily a Tory, but I do question what you hope to achieve by framing your original post in quite such a goading, sneering tone?

It hardly feels the best way to frame a good faith debate about why different types of political leadership appeal to different people.

One of the things that gives you away as unserious is your unwillingness to address actual substance of things that don't fit your argument and aren't easy to dismiss as small/retail.

If it was AI, the spelling and grammar would be better. The sneery tone is bang on though.

It seems quite ironic to accuse the Prime Minister of “dumbing down” but to then use such a lazy, cliched and unthinking soundbite to dismiss him.

Of course, on its own, hope is not a plan, but as a political strategy, used effectively, hope can actually drive the collective buy-in and civic pride a political leader needs to achieve and sustain major long-term change.

Opening No.10 North involved renting some office space above a slug and lettuce, sticking a sign on it and conveniently getting rid of one of his more embarrassing MPs by basing her there. If I was Northern, I would see it as an insult to my intelligence. The civil service is already based all over the UK anyway so it is a bit irrelevant.

Our London Borough has more rough sleepers than anywhere else in the country but Andy has just cut the council's budget massively so they will have to cut services or put up council tax by a lot more than VAT on energy bills. How will that help with cost of living or homelessness?

Andy Burnham definitely appeals to a certain type. It will be interesting when the budget comes out.

OP either has a fundamentally low understanding of politics and public policy that is mismatched to their perception of their abilities in this space, or is acting from a bad-faith space.

With these sorts of posts I often think it's the former; by belittling, dismissing and making class-based attacks they show their inability to (a) understand why in such a centralised system, the neglect by the centre of "parish council" policies has seriously degraded quality of life in a way people really care about and (b) fail to grasp the magnitude and complexity of some of what's been announced in a relatively short period.

They're up there with the "they'll be forced to call an election by Christmas!" posters in terms of understanding, but less obviously clueless.

It's the first time I've seen Green Book reform dismissed as a "soundbite" though, so that's enjoyable.

Agreed.

Nigel more likely as he is losing the most support.

Uninformed rage bait. Yawn. Probably from a bot farm.

Not had time yet to see the full extent of what he will do, and obviously he’s extremely ambitious and out to maintain his profile. But his comms are clear and in the 21st century (if annoyingly basic at times).

Crafting an identity outside parliament as the mayor of a large northern conurbation was a smart move. He went for a return to parliament and to become PM at the right time - obviously his aim for ages. (I would’ve waited if I was him, but then I’m much less of a risk taker!)

His connections and strategies (esp around housing in Manchester) are as shady as any politician’s. They’re all out to make sure they make more money after being an MP/PM than they were during.

But I think the best we can hope for is someone who thinks it’s in their interests to push policies that genuinely benefit people - even if that’s just to maintain their own popularity and profile!

And it’s just obviously so much better than the chaotic shambles of Tory Tory Tory we’ve had to put up with for so long. That party stopped bothering to even pretend to have intelligence or integrity a long time ago.

Yes, the Budget. Then we'll talk.

This government announcement to stock up on essentials and food before his budget comes out is very, very worrying.