MAIL ON SUNDAY COMMENT: We need a PM who can deliver growth - not just soundbites
- See more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred Source
By MAIL ON SUNDAY COMMENT
Published: | Updated:
As Keir Starmer was readying himself for his second Labour conference as Prime Minister this time last year, the talk was all about Andy Burnham, who had given a series of 'come and get me' interviews.
Starmer survived – but it was a temporary stay of execution. After Labour's disastrous local election results in May, Labour MPs came and got Burnham.
But as the former mayor of Greater Manchester prepares for his first conference as PM, his main problem is not that he has no mandate from voters – or even from Labour members.
It's that after two months in Downing Street he still appears not to have any serious idea how to deliver the economic growth that the country so desperately needs.
It's a view shared by some Labour MPs, who are wondering what, if anything, lies behind the Mr Burnham's incessant TikToks and social media posts.
On Saturday former Business Secretary Peter Kyle said that the Government isn't focused enough on growth and needs to act with more urgency, asking: 'Why wouldn't we put our foot down and get there quicker?'
One of his sensible suggestions is to introduce a tax growth test to measure the impact of each tax on the economy. But the chances of that happening are non-existent. Labour's instinct remains to tax and spend.
As Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden infamously put it in a message to Lord Mandelson: 'Every meeting I have is, "Who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others."'
Andy Burnham, pictured on Saturday, talks a good game about delivering growth in every postcode, but there is no sign that he actually knows what to do to kick-start the economy
That is the heart of the problem. We have a government that has no real idea about running a business, let alone bringing about the transformation necessary to deliver serious growth.
The tax burden is already the highest since 1945 and next month's Budget is certain to make this worse.
Mr Burnham rightly says that 'people don't measure growth by looking at a spreadsheet. They measure it by looking at their local high street. Are shops opening or are the shutters down? Does the place feel like it's moving forward or being left behind?'
But that comment betrays his lack of any real understanding about the needs of business, because spreadsheets also matter. Costs versus income matters and profit versus loss matters. Labour has increased costs disastrously, not least through the National Insurance rise – a tax on jobs.
Mr Burnham talks a good game about delivering growth in every postcode, but there is no sign that he or John Healey, the Chancellor, actually know what to do to kick-start the economy and make a real difference to people's lives.
Rather, they behave like old-fashioned tax-and-spend Labour politicians, making all sorts of promises on benefits – which Burnham says are more important than defence spending – and migrants, with no idea to pay for them.
At the most basic level, the Government needs to get a grip on existing spending. Before last year's Labour conference Mr Burnham notoriously said we shouldn't be 'in hock to the bond market'.
But all the bond market does is lend the money the Government needs to pay for huge levels of spending and debt. If we don't want to be dependent on the bond markets, we shouldn't run up debt. It's that simple.
This month the 30-year gilt yield (the interest rate on government debt) reached 5.89 per cent. Every one-point rise adds over £10 billion to annual debt interest. The logic is unavoidable: we have to get spending – and the debt – under control.
But instead of taking the decisions that are needed to deliver growth, Mr Burnham is showing himself to be more concerned with soundbites.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.