Andy Burnham's bounce

 

 Andy Burnham has got off  to a good start.   

He’s begun on a note of optimism and hope (in contrast to Sir Keir Starmer’s telling us, perhaps more truthfully, that things would get worse before they got better,) given a positive promise to abolish homelessness, and maintains momentum with a series of  6am treats (VAT on electricity bills abolished, bus fares capped at £2, and 20% off business rates for pubs and restaurants,. . . .and counting?)

 Mr Burnham is displaying his common touch. 

A friend of mine, lifelong Liberal/Liberal Democrat activist and experienced councillor, tells me she’s “quite excited.”  The Liberal Democrat spokesperson has declared the party’s support, and Tory pedantic bleats of   “Where’s the money coming from?” seem very “old style.”

 However, the new cabinet gives  pause for some misgivings.  

 I’m sorry that Ed Miliband has not become Chancellor of the Exchequer.  As a former party leader he is both a “heavyweight” and has  economic qualifications and previous treasury experience, - just the man to tame treasury intransigence  and focus this most powerful department to service the government’s aspirations rather than stale orthodoxy. 

Shifting Mr Miliband to the Foreign Office also has a scent of moving the party’s most credible firebrand to pastures where he will have less time and opportunity to affect domestic issues.

It is good to see Miatta Fahnbulleh as Mr Miliband’s replacement  as Energy Secretary.  She is allegedly a powerful intellect, a qualified economist and clearly destined for the Treasury at some future date.

 John Healey as Chancellor is all very well : he sounds a nice man much respected in the party.  But as former Defence Secretary he will be more inclined to furnish further funds for the wasteful and prestige-prone military than for, say, overseas development.

It is sad that, as yet, there is been no mention by Mr Burnham of restoring the Aid Budget to 0.7% of GDP.  It would also be nice to hear some prime-ministerial support for  the UK’s other “world leading” area of expertise, the BBC, and save their boring us with desperate puffs of how good they are in order to escape de-funding,

There is  little sign of any attempt to reduce “churn” in the cabinet (the switching of ministers to different departments before  they’ve grasped the job.)  Why, for example, is  not Wes Streeting  returned to the Health Ministry, where he is surely by now beginning to find his way around, rather than to Defence.  Does he know anything about that?

However, one cabinet mister who retains her post and in my view shouldn’t is Shabana Mahmood, who remains at the Home Office and seems determined to continue the Tory Theresa May’s  policy of a “hostile environment” for immigrants. 

M/s Mahmood is herself a “person of colour” and of immigrant stock and seems to take that a as licence to be aggressive to immigrants  or at least some of them. (No one seems too worried about escapees from Trump’s America who as settling in the  Cotswolds.)  Her proposals on “indefinite leave to remain” and the possibility of deporting people who’ve been settled here for years, and their children, are despicable.  I would have thought better of a Burnham Government.

There are also accusation of a fairly savage purge of  Starmerite former cabinet ministers, who have not taken kindly to their dismissal.  This could turn out to be an error.  The last thing the country  needs is factional discontent  in the Labour Party, which the largely hostile press would  do their best to amplify.  The entire party should knuckle down and support what  the vast majority of  them wished for.

  Mr Burnham’s over-all aim is to reverse the neoliberal creed  of Margaret Thatcher  which the establishment has followed for  the past forty years.By way of privatisations with inadequate regulation, deregulation of the banking sector, sale of council hoses, reduction of the powers of local government, low taxation priority over public services, is responsible for most of the difficulties our country faces. 

Good luck to him.