Reliable sources from Labour Party Conference have revealed that the supposed ‘Number 10 North’ lager is, in actuality, just Carlsberg with a different branded beer clip. I can think of no better metaphor for the entire gathering and, by extension, Burnham’s leadership of the party thus far.
A party that is so eager to portray itself as having changed since the departure of Keir Starmer, revealed instead to be the same thing, only this time with a slightly more charismatic leader and a TikTok account run by a . It’s a bit like putting lipstick on a northern pig.
It pains me to levy such a charge against Our Andy, because I’ve been rather , but the reality is that after close to three months into the job, the PM is still yet to establish what his Labour Party is for and how it differs from Starmer’s.
Instead, Burnham seems reliant on the soundbite, eager to chuck one out at every opportunity in an attempt to shield himself from scrutiny. We saw it yesterday, when he was asked by Laura Kuenssberg about his plans for social care.
“I’m going to grasp the nettle” he told Kuenssberg, when asked how he was going to transform the social care sector, adding that the system is simply “so threadbare” that it must be fixed. I don’t disagree with such a diagnosis, but Burnham then failed to set out how the system was going to be funded, and also failed to provide a definitive answer as to whether taxes would be hiked to pay for his brand spanking new ‘National Care Service.’
Instead, he just waffled on about how the current system was unfair and that something needed to change.
The same can be said for his announcement of the government’s new scheme for first-time buyers. Speaking to The Guardian, the PM set out that, under new plans, first-time house buyers would be able to put down a deposit of just 2.5 per cent alongside receiving an equity loan of 20 per cent.
As a twenty-something who would quite like to own his own house one day, I’m really rather attracted to this sort of thing. That is until you factor in the increase in demand that would coincide with such a policy, thereby pushing house prices up higher than what they already are. Burnham’s answer to such a problem was fairly simple – the government were going to build more homes “across the board.”
I’m not quite sure how he intends to do that, given that just last week Angela Rayner admitted that there was but a “slim chance” that the government would meet its house building targets, but alas. I’m sure we can all take the word of our northern messiah as gospel.
It’s fast becoming a trend that I, and I suspect many others, are becoming tired of. When he first landed the job, I could understand the appeal of the so-called ‘vibes-based approach’ to politics. He was new to the role, and given just unpopular Keir Starmer was, a strategy that involved wooing the disillusioned wasn’t an outlandish idea.
But to carry such a strategy through to Conference season when the public are very rightly demanding to know how policies are going to be paid for, and the Orwellian-esque banners labelled with ‘Hope Again’ quickly begin to lose their meaning.
And yet, as the Chancellor’s day of reckoning edges closer, both he and Burnham may soon realise that vibes can only take one so far. Pundits have already , arguing that the PM must make “difficult” decisions to shore up the public finances, but it still looks as though Burnham is blind to such a reality. Indeed, his promises become far harder to defend when one accounts for the fiscal constraints at play here.
Miriam Cates argued last week, there are already rumours that the duo are looking at tinkering with Capital Gains Tax in an attempt to claw back some funds for the Treasury. Couple that with changes that would see national insurance applied to other areas of income, and Burnham looks to be on course to raise at least £26bn on the 28th October.
But whilst it may be a hard pill to swallow for our rose-wearing comrades on the left, the reality is that – sooner or later – public spending will have to be reined in. According to recent , borrowing was roughly £3.5bn more than what official forecasters expected, and national debt continued to climb ever closer to the £3 trillion mark.
It may prove to be unpopular to cut public spending and find areas where the fat can be trimmed, but that is the duty of government. Our elected politicians are not there to roleplay as Santa, dishing out gift after gift to the public. They are there to lead, and leadership requires those at the top to make the difficult, yet necessary decisions.
The slogan of Labour’s conference this year is ‘hope again.’ Those two words are plastered on almost every banner and billboard around the conference centre in Liverpool, seemingly in an attempt to fill attendees with a sense of optimism. But too much optimism can lead to naivety.
Burnham continues to dance around the difficult issues of the day. He might make the British public feel all warm and fuzzy with his social media stunts and what not, but he seems incapable of having an honest and frank discussion about how the country moves forward.
Much like the Number 10 North lager on sale at Labour Party Conference, Burnham’s iteration of the Labour Party is a mere rebranding. There is no substantive difference whatsoever. Peel off the veneer and – in an effort not to sound like a CCHQ press release – one finds something that resembles a continuation of Keir Starmer.
To be blunt, I don’t really care if my Prime Minister enjoys scampi fries, or whether he looks ‘chic’ wearing a certain colour shirt and blazer – I just want him to be able to govern our country properly for crying out loud. Unfortunately, however, that seems like too much of an ask nowadays.