Andy Burnham has a plan for change – and I guarantee you will hate it | Personal Finance | Finance
Voters are fed up with Keir Starmer. Labor MPs are also fed up. The cabinet was more than adequate. In fact, the only person who wants more from Keir Starmer is Keir Starmer himself. If Burnham sees Nigel Farage’s Reformation at Makerfield, the stage is set. Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband will ease their path to a top job and get good jobs in return. So what will it give us? Everything boils down to one word. To change.
Burnham used the C-word a lot as she launched her campaign. “This is a midterm election change,” he told us. “Vote to change the workforce”. He didn’t say directly that this was a vote to replace the Prime Minister, but we all know it was. After a while it started to feel oddly familiar. Didn’t someone else recently win an election by promising change? Then it occurred to me. Guess who said this: “I changed my party. Now I want the chance to bring this change to the country.” This was Keir Starmer before the 2024 general election.
Starmer has been talking about change. He even put it in print after the election and published a long list of commitments under the following headings: “Plan for Change”. None of it was too much. Less than two years later, we are again promised change. And I can tell you one thing with absolute confidence. You will hate this. Here’s why.
The similarities between Burnham and Starmer don’t end with their love of the word change. Both are middle-aged men (Labour still fails to appoint a woman). They both have full hair. I am serious. The last bald man to become Prime Minister was Winston Churchill in 1951. Luckily, he had other talents as well.
Burnham and Starmer will say or do anything to come to power. Starmer won the Labor leadership by promising to keep the Corbynite fire alive, then extinguished it as quickly as he could. Burnham constantly changed her position depending on whether the party was led by Tony Blair, Gordon Brown or Jeremy Corbyn.
Both men constantly say different things to different audiences. Both have long records of political failures. Starmer has made major U-turns on winter fuel, tax, maintenance gangs, immigration, benefit cuts and more. Burnham took skewed stances on NHS reform, transport, policing, tuition fees and the bond market.
His team suggested on Monday that he would not increase income tax, VAT or national insurance rates if he became Prime Minister. So where have we heard this before?
Both attempted to appease the trans lobby before quickly changing their language as public opinion shifted against them. Both pretend to go back to work while pushing for nationalization. Both are sneakily trying to reverse Brexit. They both act like men of the people, but they are in politics. Unlike Margaret Thatcher, whom Burnham mocks, there is no political opinion they cannot reverse in an instant.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish them from each other. Burnham’s eyebrows are thicker. And he is a better speaker. We’ll get the same old bullshit with a better presentation.
When Starmer entered Downing Street, he unleashed a much harsher left-wing agenda than he had claimed during the election. He has launched sustained attacks on taxpayers, businesses, workplaces, farmers, retirees, savings and inheritances. We have suffered national humiliation from rising spending, increased immigration, the Chagos Islands, and our shamefully underfunded military.
When Burnham comes to power, her mask will fall. With Rayner, Miliband and the increasingly hard-left Labor Party putting pressure on him, he will have no choice.
Here’s why I guarantee you’ll hate Burnham’s “change”? Because Britain already hates the change Keir Starmer is delivering. Andy Burnham is set to give us exactly the same thing. Just more.
