How long do you give Andy Burnham as PM?

[AndyBurnham2L]

Build ‘em up.
Knock ‘em down.

Short honeymoon and then the grumbling will start. It will all be over for him by Christmas.

So, who’s next?

It's Wednesday, he was appointed as PM on Monday.

So how do you know he won't make tough decisions?

So far he’s governing like a provincial mayor. It’s so parochial. Bus fares and VAT on energy bills. Any idea how we’re paying for this? Because he certainly doesn’t know! Three years of this shite - God help us.

All public transport should be electric, hydrogen or bio gas....it's criminal that we preach about pollution but we still use diesel as engines in public transport.

I honestly can't believe how backwards this country ism

I wanted to know why ministers didn't know themselves - when doing the media round. The buzz word in the Burnham government is "reprioritisation".

So he isn't going to commit to climate change principles like the Starmer government. We were going to help other countries with a grant. Now we are going to give them a loan instead. So we will have money for these ideas of Andy's.

I agree, it is about priorities. NET zero isn't a priority while we are struggling with a cost of living crisis.

We should be electrifying our railways and public transport and encouraging electric cars.

Heat pumps for all new homes etc but crow barring a green policy in at this point in time is suicide. But we must prepare ourselves for the huge impact climate change will bring and that means resilience. Being unprepared will bring disaster to all our doors. I honestly mean that because people need to realise that there's going to be increasing pressure on water, food and the likelihood is there will also be catastrophic economic consequences as well.

When you consider that the combined effect of the heat wave in Europe and the Iran war is going to add 50 percent onto this autumns food prices I think there's going to be awake up call by Christmas.

This just hasn’t been thought through properly. If we loan the money then we still have to fund it and then accept the credit risk on repayment (whenever that takes place). There is a perception (rightly or wrongly) that Labour are weak on financial discipline. They must recognise that no policies should be announced without cast iron clarity in funding.

There will never be a good or convenient time to prepare for climate change. I’m not sure our grandchildren will forgive us.

So this reminds me about the support that Burnham gave the Waspi women, until he didn't. This time it is about the £12,570 threshold that has been frozen since 2021, resulting in more people being dragged into paying income tax as earnings increase.

Burnham told the Times over the weekend that the "frustration about the personal allowance" he had heard while campaigning in the Makerfield by-election was "lodged in my mind".

The prime minister then told reporters on Monday that "all of this will be looked at" in the next Budget but conceded any change would be expensive and "difficult given the financial circumstances in which we find ourselves".

On Tuesday, people close to Burnham told BBC News that any changes to the personal allowance are not part of his initial plan to tackle the cost of living.

Asked whether he would make changes to the income tax allowance on Wednesday, Burnham said: "It's funny these days you can't answer a question honestly without people then reading everything else into it.

I think we should be preparing now, making sure homes are better ventilated, insulated, glazing that reflects heat, planting trees in urban areas to create micro climates.

There's no guarantee winters are going to be warmer it could be the complete opposite and that's what I'm saying we need to prepare because if we don't we could be in a real pickle. Being reliant on fossil fuels is something we should avoid and the Ukraine and Iran is a good example of that.

I'm not sure a country the size of the UK can make a big impact on carbon emissions but we certainly can make our railways, public transport greener.

We can do our best but not make people so poor that aren't resilient in the process.

Reminds me of when he said that if he got into power he’d free MPs from the whips and allow them to vote freely. Be interesting if he sticks to that now he’s PM…

Hopefully he will only last a couple of weeks. He’s inexperienced and already making poor dr decisions.

I don't think he'll last long, but I do think there needs to be a change in the law, and that after a general election the new PM must stay for the whole term, or call another election. This time it's worse than the previous Tory PM changes, as the elected MP for Makerfield was, for want of a better word, bribed to give up his seat for AB. It's bonkers to keep changing when one turns out to be useless. Apart from the fact that the replacements are unelected, each failed PM costs the country a fortune with an annual income of £115k after leaving, end of job payoff, annual expenses plus lifelong round the clock security.

God, the shit people post on here. 🙄