Andy Burnham has certainly hit the ground running with a slew of measures to show the new Prime Minister means business. From the pledge to get homeless people off the streets to reintroduction of the £2 bus fare cap to a 10% cut in business rates for local pubs and taking VAT off energy bills, he has shown his determination to try and give people and businesses a little bit of breathing space in the face of an unrelenting cost of living crisis
Will these measures solve the crisis? Of course not. Do they show Andy Burnham gets it? Of course they do.
The last week has seen the extraordinary denouement of the story of who would succeed Keir Starmer as Prime Minister. For a party that is supposedly incapable of removing a leader without the trauma of a General Election defeat, Labour has managed one of the smoothest transfers of power in living memory. And not only that, in Andy Burnham, Labour have selected a leader people like.
Meanwhile, Reform finds itself spaffing tax-payers money in a by-election against a bin on the one hand, while having to fend off increasingly serious investigations into exactly who is funding Farage’s latest venture, and questions as to why exactly Farage and Reform think rules and laws do not apply to them on the other. More than ever before, Farage has shown himself unfit for any public office, let alone Prime Minister.
And in the week wildfires raged across Europe, the fastest- warming continent on the planet, Kemi Badenoch has decided the people who believed in net-zero as a policy objective cannot become Parliamentary candidates. This is an extraordinary abrogation of responsibility by what was once a serious party of government.
So the Age of Andy is here and I, for one, welcome the increased influence of Labour politicians called Andy.
The other Andy has set great store by “Manchesterism”. Naming a policy after a city does not mean future policy will only benefit that city. My take on it is that Manchesterism is about what can be called the politics of place. That is to say, for most people, what happens, or does not happen, in their immediate area is of a far higher importance than grand political theories or issues. And that it is the job of politicians to respond to local concerns and the to use whatever local levers they have to make their local area a better place to live.
It is somewhat pleasing that the basic ethos of Wokingham Labour councillors and volunteers, and the work they do to make their areas better places to live, is so closely related to the outlook of Prime Minister Burnham. And while we do not have it in our power to reduce bus fares, we do have it in our power to organise litter picks, clean graffiti and report local issues to the council for fixing.
I am looking forward to Burnham’s plans to move more decision making out of Whitehall and to the regions. Unfortunately, the chances of a Thames Valley mayor – and the extra funding this position would attract – seem to have been sunk recently when a LibDem authority pulled the plug at the last minute. Even without the extra funding, Wokingham Borough can look forward to a substantial reduction in costs as government plans to take over the cost of SEND funding become a reality.
By Cllr Andy Croy
