“A vote for me in this by-election campaign is a vote to change Labour,” Andy Burnham told a car park full of supporters this morning as he launched his campaign for the Makerfield by-election, in a speech that made it very clear that the voters in this constituency could also put him in Downing Street.
This was two speeches at once: one from a candidate to become a northern MP, incensed by local issues, one from a person who believes that the only way to really fix those issues is by moving into Westminster’s most desirable property. “This by-election will force Westminster to focus on the places it usually looks past”, he said, which is another way of saying to voters: what if your MP was the Prime Minister?
The word “change” was used in 19 times in this 15-minute speech. It was, he said “a clarion call for change, change for people in this part of the world, a place I love so much. Change to the economy. Change to education. Change to housing. Change to transport. Change to care, and yes, to make it all possible, change to politics.”
Voters already familiar with the Labour Party will remember a previous manifesto for Change, which was followed by a Plan for Change. Sadly, there were also some important things which the Labour Party promised not to change, such as any of the three main rates of income tax, which meant that after all the money the UK already spends, there wasn’t enough spare change to pay for the changes they wanted to make.
Burnham’s argument is that the UK has lost control of public spending because it doesn’t have control of its assets. Privatisation was a false economy that has left us spending more, unable to limit prices that are set by the private sector. This makes us more prone to inflation, which means we pay more to borrow, which pushes us further into debt.
This is a compelling argument, but it is hard to see how Britain would bring its spending under control in the long term without making some (possibly rather large) spending commitments in the short term. Burnham has committed to keeping the same rules on borrowing as Rachel Reeves, and today he said he would maintain the manifesto promise on not raising the main three rates of tax (income tax, national insurance and VAT) paid by individuals. So where’s he going to get the money?
After the speech, I asked Burnham this question and he said it was a matter of “reprioritising”. He gave housing – which he called “the most fundamental thing of all that Britain needs to fix” – as an example: Westminster has decided that local authorities should pay rent for “social housing” rather than building council houses, and the result is that that the ten councils in Greater Manchester give £75 million a year to landlords for temporary accommodation. “You’re trying to persuade third parties to do the thing that most benefits public budgets”, he said, and “they may or may not do that”. Britain would not need to come up with new money to pay for this building work, he said, because £39 billion was allocated to housing in the Spending Review: ” I’m saying that should be dedicated to council homes”.
Burnham said his management of the bus network in Manchester was an example of how “you can be more interventionist when you’ve got public control”. Lower fares have led to higher usage of the network, meaning the service brings in the same money while providing more public service.
A similar argument was made by Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves in 2024: that the biggest benefit to the public finances would come from simply running the country more effectively than the Tories had. Perhaps with a more effective PM – someone who can sell policies better to the public and their backbenchers – there is still value in this idea.
However, while Burnham said he was “focused on what we can do within the manifesto”, he also showed a willingness to start a conversation about other, potentially transformative changes to the public finances: “I’ve long been persuaded of the argument for a land value tax”, he said, adding that he was “personally keen to see reform of council tax”, and that he’d like to see hospitality businesses pay lower business rates, “because they bring the life to high streets, they bring the atmosphere, they bring the people”.
So far, Labour seems to have squandered much of its time in power, because they didn’t sell such ideas to the public in advance and arrived with no mandate to implement them. If Burnham is successful in Makerfield, that may change – but will he have time to make a difference?
[Further reading: Should the Green Party stand in Makerfield?]
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