Andy Burnham has said he can deliver on his promise of radical change for the country despite severe economic headwinds, telling the Guardian: “There’s always things you can do, it’s just whether you’re prepared to do them.” The prime minister acknowledged the public finances were “challenging” ahead of next month’s budget but said that delivering fiscal stability would be “crucial”, because only then would the government be able to focus on fixing bigger problems. A series of global economic shocks, including the Iran conflict, have put the UK economy under intense inflationary pressure and pushed up borrowing costs, leaving the government limited room for manoeuvre. Ahead of his first Labour conference as prime minister, however, Burnham sought to both reassure voters he was willing to make tough decisions to deliver change, and to show the markets that he could ensure fiscal stability while preparing the groundwork for more substantial change ahead.
Speaking to the Guardian on the eve of his first conference as Labour leader, he said: “The public would have more respect for us if we go and grab something difficult … and say, ‘Right, we’re going to do something here’, rather than constantly playing the political game before fixing the problems. Always in politics, there are things that you can do. The question is sometimes: Are you prepared to do them?
Yeah, I am prepared to do them.” When asked about the need for a large fiscal buffer against shocks, he said the key thing was stability, indicating that he understood the need to reassure the markets, but that more radical transformation of the state would follow. But actually from that stability, the permission can come to make bigger change that, in the end, could put the country in a stronger position in relation to the public finances,” he said. You can’t pursue a major programme of change, which is what I believe the country needs, in a chaotic situation.” After ruling out holding a snap general election before 2029, Burnham said that he wanted to set out a clear path for how the country could move to a better place – and that he hadn’t been spending his time “sitting politicking and strategising” but instead was focused on fixing problems.
His ambition to give people “a bit more belief that things can improve” across the country, he said, would not come from “endlessly running elections and referendums”. He denied having had any discussions with his senior team about whether to call an early election. However, Burnham acknowledged he was hemmed in on tax and the fiscal rules of Keir Starmer’s manifesto commitments, and suggested he would have done it differently had he been in charge at the time.
That’s not where my mind is, and possibly would have framed it different, but we are where we are, you know, and that’s the reality.” Burnham played down speculation that Labour may give more support for energy bills, with the cap price set to soar from January. The prime minister also reiterated that while he thought the welfare bill was too high, the will among Labour MPs was “not there for crude cuts” because they would push people into crisis, so a longer term approach to reform was required. After warning of the risks, as well as the opportunities of artificial intelligence at the UN last week, Burnham admitted to concerns about rogue AI agents attacking state institutions in the UK, after the Australian medicare system was hit.
Burnham addressed the presence of far-right protesters on the streets of Britain, accusing Daniel Thomas, who has led black-clad anti-migrant vigilantes on the streets of some English towns, of “creating fear” but did not go as far as Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, who accused him of being an “outright racist”. Speaking of Thomas’s masked gangs, he said: “I mean that’s not Britain. That’s not what we want to see in people’s communities.
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