Andy Burnham

John Sydenham

How did a twice failed contender for the Labour leadership and a minor regional official get to be worshipped as the new Messiah?

Who is Andrew Murray Burnham? He was brought up in the village of Culcheth in rural, middle class Cheshire. He went to a Catholic school and then to Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University where he obtained a degree in English. He joined the Labour Party at the age of 14 and from the age of 24 was part of the professional party apparatus, starting as a researcher for Tessa Jowell.

Burnham has stood twice for the leadership of the Labour Party and has been rejected twice. (BBC). In 2010 he came fourth out of the five contenders, losing to Ed Miliband. In 2015 he tried again, beaten by Jeremy Corbyn.

It is astonishing that a man with so little experience of the real world and such a mediocre background should be seen by the BBC etc. as the saviour of Britain.

Burnham’s major political policies are devolution, public ownership and property tax reform:

Devolution: Despite favouring the devolution of power to Local Authorities Andy Burnham has not come clean about exactly what this would entail. Much of the money for Local Government would come from a Proportional Property Tax but this would be distributed at a national level. It would give national government the same, or more, power over Local Authority spending as it has at present.

Public Ownership: Burnham would take energy and water back into public ownership over a period of 10 years. The cost would be tens of £billions.

Proportional Property Tax: government would charge a uniform annual levy based on a percentage of a property’s value. Rates and Stamp Duty would be abolished. It would entail large scale redistribution of funds from wealthy districts such as Westminster to poorer districts.

Other policies seem to be designed to attract voters rather than being credible.

HS2: Burnham said he wanted to resurrect the northern leg of HS2 between Birmingham and Manchester, external. The estimated cost of completing this was £36bn.

Business Rates: He would shift business rates from the High Street to warehouse properties. This would hit manufacturing and industries from glaziers to gas fitters if it were not confined to out of town retail operations.

WASPI Women: In his public statements Burnham clearly sees the contributory state pension as a pension rather than a benefit. He has said that he favours the cause of the WASPI women. However, this would cost would cost up to £10.5bn.

National Insurance: Burnham told BBC Newsnight he wanted to reconsider Labour’s increase in National Insurance paid by employers. This would cost £16 billion pa.

The Triple Lock on State Pensions: At about £12500 pa the UK has the lowest state pension in the G7. It is half the minimum wage. The State Pension is based on contributions paid over decades. The Conservatives lumped the State pension in with “benefits” even though it is a true pension that is reduced if contributions were inadequate. Andy Burnham told The i Paper that rolling back on Labour's last general election pledge to keep the lock would be "very damaging".

Replace Inheritance Tax with a National Care Levy: Burnham wants to make old age care free. This would cost between £7 and £17bn. He would pay for old age care by taxing Estates at death but the yield from this ‘National Care Levy’ is uncertain. Inheritance tax only raised £8.5 billion in total last year so an inheritance tax rate of 80% would be needed to pay for care for the elderly. The super rich get their money out of the country so the burden of a swingeing inheritance tax rate would fall on the middle class.

On the EU: Immediately before Makerfield Burnham repeatedly denied that he had any plans for a second referendum and said he would not try to return the UK to the EU. Without this pledge he would not have won Makerfield. Will he keep his word?

Rape Gangs and Organised Sex Crime: Burnham commissioned the Manchester Report to deliberately whitewash the Rape Gangs, many of which are run by Pakistani organised crime. This was in order to bury the Labour Party’s involvement in covering up the Rape Gangs.

Burnham’s main claim to fame is taking buses into public ownership in Manchester. Manchester gets much of its surplus money from a regeneration fund most of this money comes from central government and there is a diversion of the Manchester council pension fund back to Manchester (15% of funds). The total of this central regeneration fund is c. £2 billion (plus £1bn extra in 2026). The taxpayer’s money that is added each year accounts for most of the added growth in Manchester compared with other cities. Burnham’s claim to having a magic touch is like a councillor in Docklands looking around at the skyscrapers and saying “look what I did!”.

Burnham is a seedy apparatchik who only knows politics. As a professional politician his policies are almost entirely tax and spend because he has no idea about how business generates wealth.

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