In conversation with Andrew Griffith MP: Where will Burnham take Labour’s economics?

We are thrilled to be joined by Andrew Griffith MP to discuss the Conservative response to Burnham’s economic thinking. 

Andrew will discuss what Andy Burnham’s policy thinking gets wrong – and right – about the UK economy and what that could mean for businesses and others. This draws on what has been termed Manchesterism, particularly in the New Statesman, which is widely seen as heralding a new economic approach for Labour after Starmer.

A full transcript of the speech is below:

“In less than 10 days-time a man who spent three
quarters of his working life in London, and most of
that time in politics, will step into Downing Street
and try to convince the country that he is an
outsider.

He will tell us about the Makerfield test. About
Manchesterism, and of doing things differently.

He will say that he’s from the north, that he will
build a Number 10 of the North, and that — finally
— his Government will ensure that Britain turns a
corner.

In reality, his government will do nothing of the
sort.

Because Andy Burnham’s promises are hollow, his
policies are a page intentionally left blank, and his
radicalism is little more than a continuation of a
failed, left-wing consensus that is sinking Britain.

Most of all, he will fail because like a number of
his predecessors, he does not understand what has
really gone wrong in Britain – and therefore has no
plan to fix it.

I came into politics 7 years ago, after a 25-year
career in business, because I recognised that
something has gone deeply wrong.

Those problems did not start on the 4 th of July
2024, but they have undoubtedly been made worse
since.

Let’s step back for a minute and look at where we
are as a country.

In 1998 the UK’s GDP per capita was among the
top 10 in the world.
Today we don’t even make the top 20.

In 2026, it is likely that the UK economy will
grow slower than Greece, Albania, and Mexico.

The average British worker in 2024 was earning
no more, and in fact slightly less in real terms, than
the average worker in 2007.

And despite immigration having swelled our
population, we had fewer housing starts last year,
and the year before, than in any year in the 1990s
— when there were 10 million fewer people living
in Britain.

In London, which needs housing more than
anywhere else in the UK, there were just 4,570
starts in the first quarter of this year.

It’s no better for businesses; we are now ranked
just 24 th in the IMD International World
Competitiveness Index. A stark contrast to when
the Conservatives left office in 1997 and we
ranked 9 th .

Ask Andy Burnham why this is, and you’ll hear
slogans more befitting a student debate than a
Prime Minister.

He will claim that it was Neo-Liberalism, despite
the fact that Britain today bears closer resemblance
to a command economy than it does to a free
market — with the state on course to spend 45
pence in every pound in the economy

Or he will blame Margaret Thatcher. Despite the
fact that it was Thatcher who saw Britain’s GDP
per capita growth soar from negative territory to
nearly 5% per year — and despite her coming to
power before most current Labour MPs were even
born.

This is what we will hear from “Buzzword
Burnham”.

It’s a great basis on which to campaign, but a
terrible basis on which to govern.

Behind the t-shirts and the talk of radical change,
the truth is that he either has no answers to
Britain’s problems at all – or more likely, his
answers are the wrong ones.

He suffers from the same disease that doomed his
predecessor. More than a tepid personality, or an
obsession with process, Keir Starmer failed
because he could not solve the big problems facing
Britain.

And let’s again be honest, that failure to have a
clear plan and fully grip the levers of government
to deliver it was the undoing of a number of
Conservative Prime Ministers too.

—
Andy Burnham invited us to ask a question last
week: “What hope can we have that it will be
different this time?”

I’m ready to answer that question: Very little.

He shows no signs of being the bringer of radical
change our country needs.

A man who was already a Minister under Blair
when the Pussycat Dolls were topping the charts.

Who served in Cabinet three times while Gordon
Brown was Prime Minister.

Who was in the Shadow Cabinet under Ed
Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn.

In his 30 years in politics, Andy Burnham has had
more Westminster jobs than Harry Kane has
scored goals.

Everything points to him being more likely to be
part of the problem than part of the solution.

—
Nowhere is that more obvious than his lack of
policies.

The reason his ally Lucy Powell struggled to
define Manchesterism on television is because
Andy has struggled to define it himself.

Is Manchesterism bringing back British
manufacturing or is it putting Ed Miliband and his
business destroying energy policies in No 11?

Is it really more money for Manchester, or is it just
more money to shuttle Andy Burnham back and
forth between London and Manchester?

Like a pitiful EU commissioner, trekking back and
forth between Strasbourg and Brussels, with a
small army of Eurocrats in tow.

Is it expanding the role of the private sector in the
NHS, as he did as Health Secretary or is it banning
Palantir from the NHS, at a cost to patients,
because of politics?

I don’t think even Andy Burnham knows.

—

What Manchesterism is not, is an answer to the
challenges Britain’s businesses are facing.

The highest tax burden since the second world
war.

A national insurance rise that hits the poorest parts
of our country the hardest.

Attacks on wealth creators that have brought
Foreign Direct Investment to a record low.

And while former Labour minister Alan Milburn
has rightly sounded the alarm over Britain’s youth
unemployment crisis, the word “jobs” did not
feature once in Andy Burnham’s big speech last
week.

Now Burnham says he will choose place over
party. Problem solving over points scoring. The
long term over the short term.

It’s the return of politics for centrist dads.

A politics which sounds good on podcasts but is
silent in practice.

Because how many of Labour’s mistakes has he
committed to reversing?

Zero! Not one!

He won’t reverse the decision to raise tax on
working people to fund a £70 billion [a year]
splurge on the public sector.

Nor the 330 pages of employment red tape that is
costing young people their jobs.

He won’t bring back the two-child benefit cap to
fund the defence of the realm.

Not even – apparently – will he repudiate the
Starmer, Hermer and Lammy obsession with
giving the way the Chagos Islands or prosecuting
septuagenarian veterans.

—

Then there is his big idea of devolution – the
middle stump of ‘Manchesterism’.

But here too it seems it’s more noise and little
signal.

A “pick and mix” devolution that combines more
diktats from central government with

the illusion of local responsibility and all the time taking
power away from communities themselves.

• Talk of devolution of education – whilst Labour
  in Westminster blocks academy trusts from even
  setting the salaries of headteachers.
• Talk about devolving employment and skills –
  whilst Whitehall micro-manages apprenticeships
  and raises minimum wages oblivious of local
  employment markets.
• The option for local government to raise new
  taxes, but never the option for them to scrap old
  ones.
• And above all – an unrequited desire to be a rule
  taker from Brussels on everything from farm
  standards to places at British universities. And if
  that sounds like the very polar opposite of
  devolution that is because it is!

Andy Burnham’s Labour Party would never
countenance the real devolution of Switzerland,
Germany, Canada, or the United States.

Because British socialists do not understand that
devolution means deviation.

That inequality is fundamental to devolution,
because different policies lead to different
outcomes.

‘Growth in every postcode’ in practice means
holding back growth in many.

You don’t make the North richer by making the
South poorer.

It’s simply redistributive socialism with ‘place’ as
an additional axis on top of class, gender, and race.

Devolution without the power to go a different
path, without different outcomes, and without
freedom from Westminster diktats is not
devolution at all. It is delusion.

—

The biggest challenge of all is one which Burnham
doesn’t mention once in his 4,000-word speech.

Debt

Britain has amongst the highest borrowing costs in
the west, and a debt to GDP ratio close to 100%.

We are passing on an unimaginable burden of
£40,000 for every man, woman, and child in
Britain.

We have a duty to the next generation to bring that
burden down.

But rather than rise to the challenge, Burnham has
lowered himself to Labour’s comfort zone:
borrowing more, taxing more, and refusing to tell
his childish MPs the hard truth: that we must
spend less.

Instead of the sober statesman we need, the man
approaching No10 is a problem gambler raiding
our children’s piggy boxes and hoping their
parents won’t notice.

—

But all is not lost.

Britain is not bust. It is not beyond help. Britain
can be fixed.

We need leaders like Kemi Badenoch who can
make tough choices, not dodge them.

Others have come from behind before.

A few weeks ago, I visited Sweden, which once
had Europe’s largest deficit and surging national
debt.

Within a few years it had reformed its pension
system, slashed spending, and was on its way to a
surplus.

With a combination of scrapping inheritance tax,
wealth and stamp duty – and policies that backed
entrepreneurs, it is now one of the fastest growing

countries in Europe with a stock market that has
more new listings than London.

But to do so it needed real leadership.

There is only one party that understands the trade-
offs and is ready to make the tough choices we
need,

The Conservative party.

We are doing the granular work for the economic
revolution Kemi has called for.

Our plan is clearly laid out in our Alternative
Kings Speech. 16 bills that would make Britain
richer, safer, and stronger.

We have a plan to cut energy bills by scrapping net
zero, the climate change act, and the many cross
subsidies and levies that balloon our energy prices.

We will cut taxes for business across the country,
in every community, with 100% business rates
relief for pubs, shops, restaurants, and more.

We will repeal the job-killing measures in the
(Un)Employment Rights Act and go further to
break the power of the unions in the public sector
and critical services.

We will scrap the family business and family farm
tax, which I saw first-hand is hitting successful
businesses in Burnham’s own Manchester.

These are just some of our policies, we have more
and we are developing more every day with the
help of innovative think tanks like Onward.

—
Let me conclude with this:

The biggest mistake the media class made before
the last election was not to ask enough questions
of Keir Starmer.

They assumed that because his manifesto had the
word “change” printed across the front, that he had
a plan for change.

They assumed that because he was boring, his
premiership would mean stability.

And they assumed that because he said so, he
wouldn’t raise taxes.

Britain owes it to itself to ask the questions that
matter of Andy Burnham.

I’m sure that you here have many, but I have a
few:

1. How will you stop the crisis of youth
   unemployment that has seen 1 in 6 young
   people unable to find a job, and over a million
   economically inactive?
2. What cuts will you make to reduce the burden
   Rachel Reeves has placed on businesses
   through countless tax rises?
3. What is your plan to Get Britain Drilling
   again, and cut energy costs on firms and
   households?
4. Will you scrap the (Un)Employment Rights
   Act and cut the red tape that is strangling
   businesses? Will you get Britain building
   again? Not slogans – what are the actions you
   will take?
5. Will you stop the attack on wealth creators and
   the brain drain of our brightest and best?

I am willing to be surprised, but if the answer to
those questions is “more of the same”, then Andy
Burnham will fail just the same.

And when he fails, it will fall to the next
Conservative government to pick up the pieces,
clean up the mess, and once again restore the great
country that we are.”

END