Andy Burnham has revived Labour’s fortunes since he replaced Keir Starmer as UK prime minister in July. Labour has unseated Reform as the most popular party in Britain, according to recent opinion polls. Much of this has been down to Burnham’s media skills. But so far his leadership has been heavy on style but short on substance.
That changed yesterday when Burnham addressed the Labour Party conference. He acknowledged the array of challenges facing the country and pledged an honest conversation about “difficult choices”.
The scale of the challenge his premiership faces is underlined by the flagship policy he unveiled during his speech, which is universal free social care for the elderly. The costs of this policy are estimated at £18 billion (€20.9 billion) a year.
There is no doubt that a universal social care system would be a vast improvement on the current shambolic system in the UK. But how it would be funded exposes the challenges posed by the UK’s low growth over the past decade and its impact on the public finances. The government has to stick with its fiscal rules to appease the markets and be able to continue to borrow, greatly narrowing its room for manoeuvre.
READ MORE
Burnham floated a plan to abolish the triple lock for UK pensions – which guarantees a certain level of increase each year based on a formula – by 2030, after the next general election is due. He said he would replace it with a less generous system, to help pay for his social care policy. This is a big political gamble, but Burnham insisted that a new approach was needed
So far, Burnham has not signalled any new direction for the economy that would suggest he can break free from the path it has been on since 2016. The most obvious starting point would be to address the damage caused by the UK’s departure from the EU, which he conceded has done “more harm than good”. Until such time as he does, it is difficult to see how he will successfully pay for radical reform of care services, or any other signature policies he wishes to pursue.
