Hallelujah - my redeemer Burnham Cometh
Unless there is a big surprise from Reform in his own backyard, it looks as if we will soon have a new Labour PM in the form of 'Mr Manchester' Andy Burnham when he is elected in the Makerfield constituency and his own Party then forces Kier Starmer out.Well at lease he cannot be criticised for lack of experience in politics because since he left Cambridge he has never had what some people (me !) would say is a 'proper job'.He has been a Labour advisor, Councillor, MP, Minister and Mayor.But does he know what it is like to compete for and hold down a role in the private or even the public sector and have to competitively compete in the market place of life ?And he does seem to have changed his mind over social issues, most notably gender identification.Some good points from Andrew Neil in the MailOnline.https://www.dailymail.com/debate/article-15859349/ANDREW-NEIL-real-beef-Streeting-Burnham-promoting-dreary-socialist-agenda-70s.html(Sorry Mr Ainsworth. Could not find anything pertinent on this issue from your beloved Guardian !)'My beef with the Streetings and Burnhams of the Labour Party – indeed with the current Leftward drift of the party as a whole – is how they propose to make us more equal: higher taxes – especially on the wealth creators – more welfare, more government ownership and more regulation. In short, the same dreary socialist concoction that brought us to our knees when Labour was in power in the 1970s.I recently suggested Labour should rebadge itself the Welfare Party. But perhaps the Back-to-the-Future Party would be more appropriate.Burnham is especially guilty of this. In the Makerfield by-election, which he hopes will be his springboard to the Labour leadership, it’s almost as if he’s running against Margaret Thatcher and wants to return us to a mythical pre-Thatcherite idyll.Even though she stepped down as Prime Minister 36 years ago (and died 13 years ago) she gets it in the neck from Burnham for all the ills of the constituency for which he has suddenly decided he wants to be MP'.By railing against ‘40 years of Thatcherite neoliberalism’ he (Burnham) is burnishing his credentials with the Labour Left, which has always despaired that so little was done to reverse the Thatcher revolution during the Blairite era.He intends to put that right. In his response to Blair’s mini-manifesto he argued for a ‘very interventionist’ government with ‘strong public control and direction’ over investment and key industries such as transport, energy and even housing – the antithesis of the New Labour years. And all in the name of a more equal society.He intends to put that right. In his response to Blair’s mini-manifesto he argued for a ‘very interventionist’ government with ‘strong public control and direction’ over investment and key industries such as transport, energy and even housing – the antithesis of the New Labour years. And all in the name of a more equal society.So let’s look at how that might work out. But before we do, a word about inequality. Left-wing rhetoric increasingly implies that the rich and well-paid barely pay any taxes at all.Nothing could be further from the truth. Our tax receipts are more dependent on a small number of the well-off than almost any other advanced economy.The top 10 per cent of income-earners stump up 60 per cent of all income tax revenues. The top 1 per cent pay 30 per cent and the richest 0.1 per cent account for 11 per cent – which is a bigger share of income tax receipts than the lowest 50 per cent of earners contribute.'I wonder how it will all work out ?
John Hawkes ● 23d78 Comments