Insight - Do you feel the same way I do at the moment?

Insight - Do you feel the same way I do at the moment?

I was optimistic when Keir Starmer became Prime Minister that we'd finally have a change for the better, only to be quickly disappointed by moves like the Winter Fuel Allowance, the bodged welfare reforms, digital ID, and the appointment of Mandelson as US Ambassador.

Burnham’s inheritance is the same as Starmer's, a complex box of problems: climate crisis, defence spending, a stagnant economy, cost of living problems, a strained NHS and a breaking law and order system.

So what has Andy Burnham actually done? He has set up a Friday office in Manchester, banned portable barbecues, helped very temporarily with bus fares and electricity prices. Simply tinkering around the edges.

More perilously, he seems to be backing away from matters such as water privatisation, standing up to Israel, and solving the fuel price problem by moving away from using gas prices as the base for cheaper renewable electricity.

He looks like he is pushing back any commitment to increasing defence spending until 2035. He is going soft on limiting political donations from wherever they may come.

So is it a case for Burnham thinking simply that ‘I could do a lot better than Keir has done’ rather than having the moral fibre to use his parliamentary majority in the first months of his premiership to do those things to change this country, to put us back on track to be an outward-looking, progressive nation?

If Canada can engage with the European Union, despite a physical gap of 5700 kilometres, why cannot we do better, given that we are only 34 km from France and we share a common border on the island of Ireland? 

Stephen Hardy MBE