Key adviser to Burnham ‘likens economic growth to cancer’

One of Andy Burnham’s key advisors sees economic growth ‘Cancer’ in society.

Neal Lawson says it is time for Labor to end ‘Trumpi’s obsession with economic growth’ and focus on making people happier.

Mr Lawson, director of Labor think tank Compass, is a long-time ally of Mr Burnham and is expected to be rewarded with a job at No 10.

In an article he wrote for Byline Times last year, he questioned whether ‘growth is really under the control of individual governments’.

But he also asked whether it was desirable to continue growth and called for a vision of ‘a good society where we can all share, where there is air to breathe, where we have the space and time to let our minds wander and our bodies rest, to be citizens and not just consumers’.

Mr Lawson, a former adviser to Gordon Brown, recalled a meeting with Labor MP Harriet Harman where some activists complained that talking about growth was like ‘talking about cancer’.

He added: ‘Harriet stumbled upon something; treadmill cancer, climate chaos cancer and forced mass migration.

‘Let’s increase the importance and time, our relationships and compassion; ‘Let’s grow trees and have realistic hopes because there is no economic growth on a dead planet.’

Neal Lawson says it’s time for Labor to end ‘Trumpi’s obsession with economic growth’ and focus on making people happier

Mr Lawson suggested Labor’s decision to allow a third runway at Heathrow was ‘our version’ [Donald] Trump’s drill, baby, drill’ – a slogan used by the US President to defend oil and gas drilling.

He also warned against the deregulation agenda brought forward by Chancellor Rachel Reeves: ‘Just as the brakes on a car enable the driver to go faster, regulation is crucial to a functioning economy.

‘Without it, monopolies emerge, corners are cut and people suffer.’

Mr Burnham wants to pursue a pro-growth agenda but has vowed to break away from the ‘trickle-down economics of the last 40 years’.