The PM is right to say people want him to tackle the problem of living standards. The cost of living has risen too far too fast, with the Starmer government presiding over another lurch upwards in inflation from the 2% they inherited. Energy costs are too high thanks to the UK policy of ultra dear energy with very high carbon and energy taxes. Rents and mortgages are too dear for many, thanks to a shortage of supply of homes and very high levels of migration in recent years creating so much more demand. Mortgages were driven up by rate rises needed to curb the covid and war generated excess inflation, and then by a Labour government adding to UK public spending and borrowing.
The government’s cost of borrowing has been well above the one day worst Liz Truss spike in rates for the last year and a half. That is the cost of Labour overspending. The interest rate bill is now a major government headache, being far too high and rising too much with new borrowings and higher rates of interest. If Mr Burnham just wants to add more to the debt he will burden taxpayers with ever large interest rate bills which have to take priority over the public services we need when it comes to allocating the money.
Mr Burnham has three theories of how to tackle the cost of living crisis. The first is to continue the policy of sell out to the EU in the mistaken belief this will generate more growth. The second is to create more regional Mayors and give them all more powers to promote growth and prosperity. The third is to continue the high spend policies of more benefit payments for more people, and more subsidies and cheap or free services for those on lower incomes. These three will fail to deliver more and better paid jobs which have to be the key to greater prosperity for the many.
Sell out in Europe will mean larger financial payments by hard pressed UK taxpayers to the EU. In return we will get a worse and much dearer student support scheme, we will have to accept a wide range of EU laws that will often impede our companies, and we will sign up to yet dearer energy by joining their emissions trading and carbon tax scheme. To round off the damage we have given away £6bn of our fish over 12 years short changing our own fishing industry. We will have to impose tariffs on imports from non EU sources through the carbon border tax they want to set. Their legal impositions may well interfere with our innovative food, agriculture and digital industries. Since Brexit these industries have been freer to innovate and to grow with new ideas.
The belief in the power of Mayors is at loggerheads with the PM’s wish to ensure prosperity spreads to every postcode. Trusting local government means local and regional differentiation. Some may succeed, some will surely fail. If you believe in devolution you accept the right of Wales to lag England as it has thanks to poorer policy choices and higher taxes. The PM will have to deal with the feeling in local government that those places with City region Mayors are going to get a better deal than all the rest, and with the obvious differences there will be in the national treatment of Manchester compared to Essex.
Mr Burnham has never explained how City region Mayors can promote much faster growth as they do not determine interest rates, nor the main taxes and money and credit policies. These decisions have such a dominant effect on whether private sector companies can expand or not. He seems to think all growth comes from higher public spending and borrowing, and sees the Mayors as agents of change by putting in new facilities themselves or grant aiding those who do. This ignores all those crucial goods and services from fuel to heating and from clothes to the family car that are supplied by the private sector who have to pay the taxes to support the Mayors. A few cheaper bus fares from more subsidy is not going to crack the cost of living crisis.
I am all in favour of generous benefit payments to those who through sickness or old age cannot afford the things they need for a decent life. I am not in favour of the current benefits system which puts far too many people of working age onto benefits with no requirement for them to look for work in a new culture of sicknotes for life. Now am I in favour of more and more concessions and free passes to people on benefits for nice to have spending items to make it even more difficult for them to be better off in work. The essence of a good benefits and tax system is it looks after those who cannot fend for themselves but leaves good incentives to everyone else to get a job.
The new PM says he wants to make savings on the benefits bill by getting more people into work. Good idea but not a new one. That will require him to review how to make it more worthwhile to go to work and to review the conditions you need to meet to be on benefits. There are no short cuts or easy options to getting the benefits bill under control. Does he have the wish to understand the detail and the political toughness to push through what needs to be done to bring some reality to the out of control benefits bill?
His choice of ending rough sleeping as his first distinctive national policy shows the contradictions of his thinking. Finding accommodation for people and helping people to a better life than being on the streets are the responsibilities of local government. So is the PM going to take powers away from localities to roll out a national rough sleepers policy? Or is he going to find money for new specific grants for local government to do this better, and hope they will take up the money with the conditions? It is not clear how this will work. Meanwhile critics point out that after some welcome initial success in Manchester as a Mayor with a rough sleeper policy, in recent years the problem has again got worse.
Warm words of hope and communicating a sense that he does want people to be better off is fine. That will only work if these words are true. That will require an altogether more professional and thought through set of policies, backed up by proper control of borrowing and lower levels of taxation. So far there is no sign of either. We have government by PM soundbite and wish list. These now will collide with reality.
July 26, 2026
As a socialist Burnham believes state spending is good. Currently only around 25-30% of local government finance comes directly from central government. No doubt he intends to increase this substantially and also to favour councils of which he approves, ie. Labour controlled with socialist agenda, and no doubt also he will offer more for authorities willing to take more illegal migrants. Perhaps he will copy the EU in allocating illegals around the country on a pay per illegal migrant basis. And of course, since the regions are structured to mirror the EU’s regions of England, he can facilitate more EU regulation region by region, by-passing Westminster and all that Conservative and Reform opposition to EU rule. Basic divide and rule. Some of them, clearly, might become caliphates.
July 26, 2026
So the EU, Mayors and benefits. Yes all huge expenses.
The first two have yet to balloon. They are problems to come. They could easily be avoided if Burnham had any common sense. Self inflicted wounds for the future.
Benefits will continue to be a problem as more scroungers enter the country illegally.
There is also the problem of the disappearance of jobs. Industry is in decline and there is nothing to promote growth in the private sector. A benefits culture is ingrained in sections of society that has to be tackled by cutting the benefits. There is no sign Burnham will do this.
July 26, 2026
Benefits are too easily qualified for and over generous. The burden is for too heavy on the hard-working people who provide the funds.
Paying benefits to people in work to subsidise their worked-for income is also crazy. If a job is not worth paying a commercial rate to hire someone it is not worth doing.
Burnham seems to want to distort simple economics and present it as a novel formula to create success. His intentions seem as twisted as a nine bob note and he’s only just started on a path to economic idiocy.