You may remember Sir Keir Starmer. He was Prime Minister once. He said a lot of very dull things, and some spectacularly daft ones too.
Andy Burnham is driving us mad for party political reasons (Image: Getty)
Today we have Andy Burnham. He’s not as dull, but the Labour Party looks just as detached from reality on his watch. Possibly more so. This is the only collection of Britons who hanker for the crisis-ridden, strife-torn, bankrupt 1970s, so what do you expect? Last week I was reminded of one dim-witted Starmerism from October 2024, just days before Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered her first Budget. Weirdly, Starmer promised Reeves wouldn’t tax “working people”, when everybody knew that was exactly what she was going to do.
Pressed to explain what he meant by working people, Starmer described somebody who “goes out and earns their living, usually paid in a sort of monthly cheque”, but doesn’t have the ability to “write a cheque to get out of difficulties”. Total word salad, but there was some method to Starmer’s madness. Labour’s manifesto promised not to raise taxes on “working people”, so redefining them right before a Budget was a red flag. And so it proved.
Days later, Reeves hammered savers, pensioners, landlords, farmers and business owners, all of whom will have been working people at some point in their lives, and in many cases still were. Serves them right for having money in the bank, I suppose. And the ability to write a cheque – not that many people do these days.
Now Burnham’s Labour is having another shot at defining these mythical working creatures. Chief Secretary to the Treasury Emma Reynolds just declared: “I don’t think employers are working people.” So the millions who set up businesses, work long hours, take financial risks, employ staff and keep the economy moving don’t count. Which means Labour can go after them too.
On Wednesday, Louise Haigh, standing in for Burnham at PMQs, was asked the same question. Her definition of working people? Those who “don’t have savings they can dip into” and “rely on good public services”. So basically, if you’re skint and only scrape by, you’re a working person. If you save and make your way, you’re not. Haigh seems to have got it back to front.
This madness is being used as an excuse to milk pensioners too. By very definition, they’re no longer working people. Which is presumably why Burnham decided the state pension triple lock makes a fair target. Along with their savings, capital gains and inheritances.
Labour’s rising financial star Torsten Bell seems to regard pensioners as a vast herd of cash cows. He’s never seen a working person he didn’t want to tax, but he wants to tax pensioners even more. This madness doesn’t stop at taxation. Burnham jumped into the slavery compensation row with both feet, embarrassing the King and potentially leaving us on the hook for trillions. You’d have to be completely barmy to do that. The sight of Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband diving in proves it.
Anybody who thinks Caribbean countries can be fobbed off with the £40m Burnham promised last week must be addled.They want trillions.That we don’t have. Again, there’s a method. Burnham is now willing to do or say anything to win back the motley collection of die-hard Corbynites and Gaza-obsessed Islamists who defected to Zack Polanski’s Greens.
So he scratches away at Brexit sores, ripping open a debate that tore the country apart for years, while pretending he isn’t. Incredibly, Labour is now picking the scab off the trans debate too, when most of us just want this toxic issue to go away.
But Labour’s draft conversion practices bill could expose parents who question a child’s decision to transition to a potential prison sentence. Madness. As is shuttering the North Sea fields while importing oil and gas from abroad. Yet more madness. Still, what do you expect from a party that fell head first for Russell Brand? Sanity?
None of this is accidental. Floating madcap ideas then backtracking, only to float them again more aggressively, seems designed to rally the wider Left to Labour’s flag, while the Right tears itself three ways. If Burnham calls and wins an election, Britain will completely decouple from reality. We may never rediscover our fabled common sense again.