Big pronouncements

What Burnham has done today imo is to “signal” the direction of travel, and in the process indicating to the struggling that help will indeed be coming - although probably in the longer rather than shorter term. But we shall see.

£45 is a lot of money to someone on benefits.

According to TRIP scrapping VAT on energy was one of the things vote leave promised if we left the EU but then never did ( I should have remembered this as Gisela Stewart did a Q&A on here and promised just that and I moaned about it for years afterwards until it was overshadowed by even more things to moan about).

I haven’t listened to trip yet - must do later this evening.

They did point out that scrapping ID cards was meaningless economically given that the money hadn’t been allocated for it anyway. I hadn’t looked at it that way and had assumed that Darren Jones was being critical of the Starmer government and, in fact, it was the opposite. Which surprised me due to his loyalty to Keir. They also said that after his last resignation speech Keir went to the pub with his mates. Good for him .

Thank you GrannyGravy, I thought it was only 3 months but knew it wasn't for a year.

Luckygirl3

£45 is a lot of money to someone on benefits.

It’s that amount over 6 months.
I think if it had been targeted to the poorest it could have been a lot more.
May well have been too difficult to be a targeted amount, so tbh I wonder if it’s worth doing at all.

Only people with enough income dismiss any extra help no matter how little.

It’s obviously just gesture politics, it’s non targeted so everyone will get it.

I prefer money to go to those who need it.

Oreo

I prefer money to go to those who need it.

I didn’t have you down as someone in support of abolishing WFA except for those on pension credit. Interesting

That’s because you know nothing about me Tuliptree and I don’t have you ‘down’ as anything at all.

WFA was too targeted as those just above the line lost out and they were poor too, like my own Mum.
It was a big political mistake by KS and RR.

Whitewavemark2

What Burnham has done today imo is to “signal” the direction of travel, and in the process indicating to the struggling that help will indeed be coming - although probably in the longer rather than shorter term. But we shall see.

I do agree with is, in other words gesture politics.

The VAT cut is a nice gesture but will end up doing little to help people because …

Martin Lewis: I’ve just got the latest energy bill predictions. The average of 3 sources show the Price Cap rising 5.1% on 1 Oct - as the last week has seen very high wholesale rates. An annualised rise of £93 on a typical bill.

Blame the warmongers for that.

Burnham and his merry band of cronies. Have still not said anything about economic growth, or rising, unemployment and tackling the ever growing welfare state costs.
Not to mention Social Care and the NHS

Never mind the ever growing problems around immigration and guaranteed job losses due to AI

Basically, because they have no ideas or policies. Just empty promises And are too weak to stand up to the real causes of these problems and sort them out.

Or they will more importantly, lose voters. Which is really the only real game in town. And always has been to stay in power.

As for his Manchesterisms. Well he kind of did take the buses back into public ownership. Spent a fortune on painting them yellow as part of the Bee Network.

Services has not improved. Some may say actually got worse.

As for regional.govrnment.Never going to happen in England.

And the Downing Street of the North? This is the best joke l have heard all week. Publicity hang over from George Osbourne's Great Northern Powerhouse.

I think decentralisation is a very good idea. It means that relevant government departments can be nearer to those they serve.
Savings can be made on estate costs in London, and a wider talent pool of employees, rather than mainly drawn from the south east.

Hear hear. It's been in the grip of London far too long.

As regards Manchester, there is a history - I lived there when years of feminist action resulted in the Equal Opportunities Committee on 16th July 1984. I remember visiting....

So I was cross checking further and came across this reminder

www.greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk/what-we-do/equalities/independent-inequalities-commission/

Burnham was amongst those who set up not just this commission but even more significantly

The Greater Manchester Race Equality Panel was formed in December 2020 as a result..

(But the national Equality and Human Rights Commission -EHRC has had its headquarters/offices in Manchester since its creation in 2007. And I suspect the Womens Equality Commission spawned these Manchester settings.

Oreo

WFA was too targeted as those just above the line lost out and they were poor too, like my own Mum.
It was a big political mistake by KS and RR.

Abolishing WFA was a major political mistake but it was and is in need of reform equitably. It’s completely unfair and ridiculous in who does and doesn’t qualify. Couples in particular do very well out of it