Yesterday Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced a tax to fund Social Care on the Laura Kuensberg show. He mentioned that this would be a Manifesto pledge for the next General Election in 3 years. On the same show Chris Philp, Tory Minister, said that the Tories would not support this and that the Tories had plans to fund something similar by making Welfare cuts.
So is Burnham’s strategy a reckless Strategy doomed to fail? Already people have been hit by the Cost of Living Crisis and increases to household budgets so people are not going to be willing to pay out more in taxation.
There is a better way for Andy Burham
It may have been a better way for Andy Burnham to prioritise other issues before tackling the issue of Social Care. So far Burnham has benefited from a honeymoon period without laying out a grande plan or costing one either. Issues like bringing back the utilities into Public ownership would be a way to raise funds for Social Care without having to resort to extra taxation or changes to the Triple Lock for pensioners. People probably need to see positive changes before being introduced to a grand scheme. Now he has laid bare his plans before the electorate and it’s being picked apart by the other political parties jumping on the scheme accusing it of being an attack on pensioners. However the electorate could choose other parties in any future Election in which case Burnham’s plans will not get off the ground at all. Leaving the proposals as a future manifesto pledge is a risky strategy especially when he has opened himself and the Labour Party to the critism of the other parties. It’s a risky strategy or is it just a bid for time to explain to the electorate the benefits of such a scheme. Many could view this as making people generally poorer and that has never been a vote winning strategy and neither has patience.
Is Andy Burham the visionary that Britain needs?
Perhaps if the Labour Party wish to remain in power after the next General Election they must remind themselves that other political parties are offering choices which may appeal to voters who are conscious of wanting to find ways to make their incomes go further. Reform are offering an increase to tax thresholds to around £15,000 a year. This has brought a similar response from the Liberal Democrats and the Tories are refusing to increase taxation and are looking for cuts to welfare benefits. So the Labour Party may simply be pricing themselves out of being a viable Election choice. However in the long term the benefits of adopting the strategies that PM Andy Burnham has set out could be the most sensible option. Andy Burnham may be the visionary that Britain needs right now but that all depends on whether he can survive the firepower of the other political parties and actually get his message across without the spin that other parties have begun to use such as pensioner bashing. In many ways Burhaam’s ideas do add up to a working solution to the Social Care issue which other parties have sidestepped and in many respects continue too avoid tackling.
Triple Lock to be adjusted for Pensioners. Is this political suicide for the Labour Party
Today we also learned that the Triple lock is to be adjusted for pensioners in an attempt to fund the plans Andy Burnham has for paying for Social Care. The phrase too much too soon comes to mind and all these philanthropic plans would come after the imagined re-election of Labour to government in the next General Election. Labour may have just sacrificed any opportunity they had of holding on to power in the next General Election or at least put them in jeopardy. Alienating both the pensioners vote and for the majority of taxpayers could prove to be a mistake. Has Andy Burnham has committed political suicide by offering his best philanthropic intentions to the country in the expectation that they will feel the same about the issue and the willing to make personal and financial sacrifices themselves to support his plans? Well maybe not. there is a logic to the proposals which are not immediately obvious. It all depends on whether the PM and the Labour Party can get the message across that the loosing the Triple Lock in itself is not a bad thing and whether or not they can make people feel better off between now and the next General Election. Labour and the PM have to win the war of words and gain the trust of the pensioners. That is going to be tough ask with all the other white noise and sensationalism and scaremongery coming from the other political parties. perhaps maybe it’s time for the pensioners to play there part and make what would amount to only a small sacrifice.
All of Burnham’s plans may be too soon. Burnham should address Government borrowing first and then take back public ownership of the utilities in an attempt to bring in socialist style economics from which the government could then receive an income from which he could have developed his plans for Social Care. After doing this he would have demonstrated that his plans had substance and benefits to the general public and they would get behind his ideas more. Instead he has chosen to make a significant proportion of the voting public poorer before they see any improvements which is always a risky strategy.
The honeymoon period in which he enjoyed an increased popularity may now over. In a few months time he will be as despised as Sir Kier Starmer was the man who he replaced with so much hope. Potentially Labour have put a second term in office at risk.. Andy Burnham has certainly handed Kemi Badenoch’s Tories some amunition with which to attack him if not even a get out of jail free card. Attacking the pensioners is a risky strategy that could be exploited by the other parties so Burham needs to press home his message so that they understand that they are not going to be much worse off financially. It may be an opportunistic time to exploit this message as the pension draws ever closer to the Tax threshold in which case having the Triple |lock could work against itself to actually make pensioners worse off anyways. Didn’t Burnham learn anything from Starmer when he attempted to scrap the Winter Fuel Allowance for the pensioners. That basically started the demise and increase in unpopularity of Sir Kier Starmer. We can only watch bow as Burnham may have brought about the same fate to himself.