Mr Burnham says he believes he will get more growth and prosperity if he devolves more power to Regional mayors and if he nationalises more industries. These are two wrong turnings.
He immediately contradicts himself by saying when it comes to tackling homelessness, his first priority, he needs to take powers away from Mayors and local government in order to enforce a uniform and effective national policy. When is he going to do that to show he means business with his stated prime aim?
He has also discovered that pressing for full nationalisation is too expensive. A wish to build hundreds of thousands of Council homes has been changed to hundreds of thousands of social or affordable homes not in Council ownership, presumably owing to cost and the inability of Councils to get things done. A passion to nationalise Thanes Water comes up against a nationalised version having large capital needs to build more reservoirs and treatment works which the Chancellor cannot afford.
Mr Burnham ignores just how bad our nationalised industries are. The Post Office secured the imprisonment of many key staff on false charges of fraud and now needs taxpayers to pay large compensation bills. British Steel is losing £1.3 m a day with no plan of how to sort it out and save the blast furnaces. Indeed, the government wants to close them for net zero reasons, leading to the loss of many jobs they say they wish to save! HS 2 is an enormous cash sink, running way over original budget and more than 10 years delayed.
So what is the attraction of nationalisation? When will Mr Burnham admit we cannot afford more of it?