The Makerfield by-election – in which Andy Burnham swept to victory overnight – has been presented as a fight for the soul of Britain, but in a few years’ time we will look back upon it as a quaint sideshow in a long-lost world. As Britain spirals towards fiscal disaster, the days of having the likes of Andy Burnham trying to buy the electorate by showering them with spending promises are rapidly drawing to a close. Just how much could Burnham cost us if, as expected, he challenges Keir Starmer and goes on to become prime minister?
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Social housing: Burnham has promised to relocate £39 billion earmarked for social and affordable housing to purely new social homes, to be funded by borrowing. He says that trying to push private developers to build social housing as part of their developments doesn’t work. Actually, developers have provided many thousands of social housing units over the past couple of decades, although councils and mayors have undermined this source of social housing by being too greedy and demanding excessive proportions of new estates to be affordable housing.
