For all his social media antics since becoming Prime Minister, Andy Burnham is still an enigma. We might know his favourite bar snacks, but we don’t yet know what he really wants to do to allow the pubs serving those pork scratchings and crisps to keep operating. Next week, parliament returns, and with it the difficult questions about Burnham’s real priorities as leader. One of them is how can the new Prime Minister really help business?
This week, he gave a “pro-business” interview to the Financial Times where he claimed that he wanted to lighten the burden on companies this autumn. “I’m not coming into this role thinking how do we make life harder? I’m trying to make life easier for people. How do I take pressure off? How do I meaningfully deal with the cost of living and the cost of business?”
How can he really meaningfully deal with the “cost of business” without addressing the tax burden that firms are struggling under, though? All Burnham’s comments thus far have involved him refusing to rule out raising taxes still further, but talk to any business in any postcode of the UK – given Burnham is so fixated on “good growth in every postcode” – and they’ll say that they are still staggering about under the weight of the increase in employers’ national insurance contributions, along with business rates and new workers’ rights legislation.
