In an interview with LFF, Akehurst, the MP for North Durham, said he thought that the Prime Minister was on the right track when asked about his direction of travel since taking over from Keir Starmer.

“I’ve done lots of canvassing on my own patch and before the summer recess I still thought we could narrowly beat Reform but we were getting 37% of our canvass returns as Labour, close to summer recess 51% Labour and that matches data that was in a report that Think Labour produced this week that showed a very large 12 point increase in the Labour vote in the North East of England.

“Voters in my patch have picked up on the fact that he represents an area that’s similar and he’s shown he’s listening to red wall voters”.

He also praised Burnham for doing well amongst urban voters.

“The two most difficult bits of coalition Labour assembled in 2024 needs to reassemble. So, the people we might lose to the Greens in urban areas and university towns and the people we might lose to Reform in red wall seats, they both seem to quite like what they’ve seen from Andy Burnham.”

In recent weeks, some former members of Keir Starmer’s cabinet, including Darren Jones have been warning about the need for fiscal responsibility and not reverting to Labour’s comfort zone of only throwing red meat to the party membership. There have been concerns in some quarters that there is now a new cohort of experienced, opinionated former ministers on the backbenches with the potential to make Burnham’s life difficult.

However, Akehurst disagrees and says that generally the mood in the party is ‘pretty cohesive and united and pleased with the direction of travel’.

Could Akehurst see any flashpoints over the budget next month? “Clearly there are things which will provoke debate but he has to lead, he’ll listen and people will have to respect that the buck stops with him.”

While Labour may be leading in the polls following Burnham taking over as party leader, the threat from Reform is far from over, with a number of polls predicting a hung Parliament.

How does Akehurst think the Labour Party can win over those voters considering voting Reform?

“Delivery matters”, said Akehurst.

“For people flirting with Reform, the question is do we continue to drive through the successful work Shabana Mahmood has done on controlling illegal immigration and then we need to keep telling people about that, because there’s scepticism about ‘are the numbers real?’ If you watch GB News you’ll think there’s still lots of small boats crossing the channel.”

On the threat posed to Labour’s left from the Green Party, Akehurst thinks a lot of what Burnham has already done has suppressed the Green vote.

“We’re talking down to about 8% which is where they were at the last general election rather than 18 or 20% that they were at peak and I think he’s already succeeded in consolidating the left of British politics behind Labour, particularly in seats where there’s a competition between us or Reform and the Tories. 

“We’ve also started to make headway on winning back some people who were concerned about small boats and there’s more that can be won over.”

Akehurst believes that Burnham is well placed to hold Labour’s voter coalition together and bring back former Labour voters.

“Andy has demonstrated you can win both of those two groups of voters back.

‘The composition of the Labour vote we need to win in North Durham is radically different to the composition of the Labour vote we need to win Holborn and St Pancras and the trick of modern politics is to find the things that all of those sets of voters agree on and that brings them together, without going so far that you turn off people at the other end of the coalition.”

The post Luke Akehurst: ‘Andy Burnham has succeeded in consolidating the left of British politics behind Labour’ appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

Andy Burnham told Labour conference this week that he would end the existing state pension triple lock from 2030 to help fund a new national care service.

Burnham’s plans would see the state pension increase every year at least by inflation or 2.5% – but remove the automatic annual link with average earnings.

The state pension rates currently rise every April by either inflation, earnings growth or 2.5% – whichever is the highest.

He told conference: “The state pension will continue to rise every year at least by prices or 2.5%. And it will hold its value relative to earnings over time so that pensioners will always share in the rising prosperity of the nation.

“But this change will generate significant savings which we will use to build up our national care service.”

In an interview with LFF, Graham said: “I think we should have a national care service, I completely agree with that, free at the point of use, it could be groundbreaking, a 1945 type thing, fantastic.

“I don’t think that it should be pensioners that should pay for that, I think it should be done by a wealth tax.”

Burnham has said that social care in England is “as unfair as American healthcare, where the most vulnerable in society can lose everything, they can be wiped out”.

Asked about Burnham’s conference speech in which he laid out his programme for government, paving the way for greater public control over housing, water and energy services, and potentially reforming the UK’s electoral system, Graham said she agreed with the Prime Minister’s diagnosis of how Britain got to where it was after 40 years of privatisation wrecked the economy.

However, she cautioned that now was also a time for ‘some meat on the bones’ and for immediate measures to help the public with the cost of living crisis.

She said: “We do need to get some meat on the bones and I think it needs to be looked in two ways, firstly immediate, because people  will be looking for some immediate relief from the cost of living crisis and I really think we need to start looking at thresholds, because we’re dragging people into tax thresholds that they should not be in, so you’ve got nurses, train drivers, in the 40% and you’ve also got others like pensioners and other people being pulled into 20%.”

With the budget set to take place next month and Burnham warning of some difficult choices having to be made, Graham said she hoped it wouldn’t be the working class who paid the price.

“The working class have paid for way too long, since the 2008 crash and Covid, there’s nothing left for the working class.”

The unite boss once more pushed for a wealth tax, and argued against detractors who claim that it would be too hard to implement.

“It amazes me that whenever we raise the issue of a wealth tax, people recoil in pain, they seem to be very easily taxing working class people”, she said. 

“We’ve just frozen the tax thresholds since 2022, the Tories did it but we’ve continued it on and it always amazes me that whenever we talk about a wealth tax some say it’s too difficult we couldn’t do it, but when talk about taxing working class people it’s a breeze.

‘Of course we can tax wealth it’s very simple to do and we’ve given very many examples of how that would be done, the richest 1% just tax 1% more would bring in £25bn in one year, there are ways to do it and we should do it.”

The post Sharon Graham interview: ‘National Care Service should be paid for using wealth tax not ending triple lock’ appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

This is a substantial shift in Labour’s position on the constitutional issue, and supporters of electoral reform have no doubts about its significance.

At the Labour Party’s conference, LFF spoke to Laura Parker of Labour for a New Democracy – a group which has been pushing for the Labour Party to support a proportional voting system.

The interview was conducted before Burnham’s big conference speech in which he made the announcement on electoral reform.

Speaking to LFF, Parker said several things which proved prescient. She said that she was “very” confident that the next Labour general election manifesto would include a commitment to proportional representation.

Asked why she had this level of confidence, Parker told LFF: “He’s a converter. This is a guy who’s been coming to our meetings for the last five or six years consistently. But he’s been persuaded for a decade or so.”

She went on to add that she thought Burnham had the ‘zeal of the convert’ and a personal commitment to electoral reform that was ‘really strong’.

This, Parker argued, has come from his time outside Westminster as mayor of Greater Manchester. “I think his time outside Westminster genuinely means he wants to approach politics in a different way”, she said.

Burnham cynics often point to the fact that he has at various times taken strong stances in support of particularly causes and later rowed back on them. He has previously, for example, flirted with rent controls or a Universal Basic Income. But since entering Number 10, his government has made clear it isn’t interested in the former and been silent on the latter.

Why would PR be any different?

Parker told LFF: “I understand the jury’s out for many people. And yes, he’s got to prove himself”, before adding “Proof is in the pudding and he has said that he wants to do it. So now we need in the coming weeks and months to see some action, [some] next steps.”

Finally, LFF discussed with Parker the relationship between proportional voting systems and the far-right.

Parker begins by saying that her opposition to Reform and the far-right is unrelated to her support for proportional representation, telling LFF: “We have never argued from a position of either party advantage for the Labour Party or to stop party X. We don’t want anyone to have a majority of power on a minority of the vote, full stop. Now, clearly as a socialist I’m particularly not keen for it to be Reform. But genuinely if you speak to the vast majority of supporters of our campaign, this isn’t a ‘Get PR, Stop Reform’ campaign.”

Parker nevertheless went on to argue that introducing a proportional voting system would not be to the advantage of the far-right, and in fact it would help reduce their influence, telling LFF “there is zero evidence that PR advantages the far right, zero evidence” and that “As a general rule, it ameliorates the far-right because they have to find coalition partners. Most of the time, people don’t want to be in coalition with them.”

She went on to add: “If you look at all the countries where they’ve had the far-right in Europe, and yes, in some cases as the leading party of the coalition, they’ve had to be the leading party of the coalition and someone’s put the brakes on them.”

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

Image credit: oatsy40 – Creative Commons

The post Laura Parker: ‘There is zero evidence PR advantages the far-right’ appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

That means he’s seen six Labour leaders in his time. What does he make of the latest one?

“I think Andy Burnham is a different kind of prime minister to Starmer”, Trickett told LFF in an interview at the Labour Party’s conference in Liverpool. “He’s a likeable guy. People do like him. They find him interesting. And he’s making lots of different noises, changing direction.”

However, Trickett is clear that vibes aren’t enough, and that he wants to see Burnham take action on the big issues facing the country and his constituents. He said: “We want some action. And so the next thing is for Andy to step up with his new government to begin to deliver the change which people are desperate for.”

For Trickett, that change has to mean tackling the cost of living crisis and addressing economic inequality in the UK.

He told LFF: “I think the main thing for the kind of people I represent is what they call the cost of living crisis. What it really means is bosses paying low wages and also putting up prices so there’s a crisis at home. Too often in our area people work hard, play by the rules but still live in poverty even though they’re working sometimes more than 40 hours a week. And that is very very difficult.

“And at the same time, they look around see all these billionaires seem to be springing up everywhere like mushrooms in a dark shed somewhere. And it brings a sense of unfairness and injustice and anger.”

He went on to say: “It brings a sense of unfairness and injustice and anger. And we do have to get a grip on the larger structures of how the economy works.”

Trickett said that some of the policies Burnham has introduced in the early days of his premiership – such as lowering the cap on bus fares – have gone some way to deliver this. But, he also argued that the government has to go much further, and warned that the existence of the Labour Party is in jeopardy if he doesn’t deliver transformative change.

He told LFF: “Andy said at the Makerfield by-election, he said it was existential. Well, that’s a fancy word. What it means is the existence of the Labour Party is in jeopardy if we don’t get it right.

“So, he’s made some very, very important correct noises. We’ve now got to see some action”.

What’s the scale of the transformation Burnham needs to deliver? For Trickett, it isn’t small, and includes things like public ownership of public services and increased taxation on the wealthy.

He told LFF: “When you ask people for example about public ownership or about a wealth tax, they’re massively popular. Over 80 per cent of people want to see electricity, gas, water, the buses all back in public ownership. These are massively popular ideas.”

He continued: “When think about water, for example, the sewage down in the rivers, streams and in the sea, leaks all over the place, no new reservoirs and we’re saying we’re into a climate crisis and droughts each year, massive profits and chief executives earning a fortune. All of that is completely unacceptable. That [public ownership] is something we should be doing now.

Trickett then added that it is “self-evident we need to move on a wealth tax”, before saying: “That is a massively popular idea when you poll people in the country. I was looking at a poll the other day. It’s staggering how many people are in favour of it.

“So my impression is – and it’s more than an impression because I encounter people every day in my area – people want change.”

Alongside making the case for a more radical economic programme, Trickett also cautioned Burnham that the way to fend off the threat posed by Reform is not by “pursuing the politics of Reform”.

He told LFF: “If you have a Labour government pursuing the politics of Reform in order to try to destroy them, all you’re doing is legitimising Reform”.

He went on to imply that Keir Starmer’s time in Number 10 engaged in this kind of politics, and called for Burnham to break with it.

Trickett said: “The first thing and most important thing is we step back from that beause what it’s done is it’s created this massive vacuum with millions of people feelign Labour would normally be their natural party, who felt that they couldn’t vote for them.

“And then people look around and say well what are the other options? And some people will go to REform because they think – well – they’re the ones whoa re offering a break with the status quo. All of that was a mistake.

“So I’m looking to this government to rebuild the coalition which can put Labour into office on a progressive bold programme of reform. Now Andy’s words are very good on all this. He’s said he wants to be bold and wants to be radical. But let’s hope it’s not radical in the direction which Starmer was taking us, which was mistaken.”

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

Image credit: UK Parliament – Creative Commons

The post Jon Trickett MP: The existence of the Labour Party is in jeopardy if Burnham doesn’t deliver appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

Cooper told conference: “Since the election, Bridget Phillipson and Lucy Powell have been working to rebuild family hubs across the country, bringing back support for parents and for young children.

“But something is missing. In half of communities, compared to the last time round, the healthy babies services – mental health support for mums and dads, the feeding and bonding support for your new baby.

“That changes now. I can announce we will bring back the Sure Start health services into every family centre.

“Reaching up to 1,000 hubs over the next two years.

“One of the Labour party’s greatest achievements restored to families throughout the land.

“So listen to that, George Osborne – Sure Start’s back.”

Cooper also said that the government would be setting up a collective pension scheme for workers in care sector.

She said the Labour government will deliver the first-ever legally-binding fair pay agreement for care workers with minimum standards of pay and conditions across every employer.

Cooper told delegates: “We will publish a proper workforce plan for social care, proper career pathways, training, development of specialist skills.

“We’ll offer thousands more academy places to help young jobseekers into good jobs in care, and thanks to the campaigning of all the Unison members in this hall, we will go further because it is just wrong that the people who work hardest to help others maintain dignity and respect in old age too often get nothing back from retirement themselves.

“So, I can announce today we will introduce the first ever national collective pension scheme for workers in the care sector – fair pay, fair terms and conditions, and now a proper pensions scheme.”

The post Yvette Cooper tells Labour conference ‘Sure Start’s back’ appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

Today it was environment secretary Angela Eagle’s turn. She used her speech in the main hall to announce a plan to spend £79 million on planting half a million trees in England to make the country more resilient to climate change.

Eagle told the conference: “In areas where nature has been allowed to flourish, the ground held more water, and the droughts were less severe”, she told the conference, before going on to add: “On streets where trees have been planted, the shade meant temperatures were lower. And when rain finally came, those same trees reduced the risk of floods. We all deserve access to the benefits that nature can bring.”

The announcement will see £53 million to fund urban and rural tree planting in streets, parks and places close to where people live and work, cooling towns and cities and boosting biodiversity, and a further £26 million for Mayors and local authorities to help deliver nature recovery in their area and climate change.

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

The post Labour pledges £79 million fund to plant half a million trees appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

Burnham is proposing to change the triple lock into a double lock, meaning the state pension will increase in line with inflation or 2.5 per cent, whatever is higher. This means that state pensions will likely rise more slowly and will no longer be linked to average earnings growth.

Burnham announced his plans at his speech at Labour Party conference.

Polanski criticised the move, accusing Labour of “going after pensioners”. He posted on social media: “Why is the Government going after pensioners? It’s time to tax the rich.”

A snap poll by YouGov suggests the public support scrapping the triple lock to fund social care reform by a margin of 48 per cent to 28 per cent.

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

The post ‘Tax the rich’ – Zack Polanski criticises Burnham’s triple lock plans appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

The triple lock means that the state pension increases each year by either 2.5%, inflation or average earnings growth, whichever is higher.

Burnham’s plan would see the triple lock replaced with a ‘double lock’ – increasing the pensions by either the rate of inflation or 2.5%, whichever is higher. This means that the state pension will increase at a slower rate and save the treasury billions of pounds.

These savings would be used to help create a new national care service which would make social care free at the point of use.

Early signs suggest that Burnham’s plans have the support of the public. A snap poll by YouGov found that 48 per cent of the public support the proposals, with 28 per cent opposed.

However, 25 per cent of the public don’t yet know whether they would support this measure.

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

The post Snap poll suggests public supports scrapping triple lock to fund national care service appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

That fact was acknowledged at the Socialist Campaign Group rally at the conference. Over a dozen people spoke at the rally – including MPs and trade union general secretaries – and most of them made reference to the clear shift in political narrative from the party leadership.

However, the rally also saw a clear commitment from the Labour left to push for Burnham to offer a more radical approach to policy and a clear signal that support for his premiership was not unconditional. Indeed, multiple speakers told the meeting that the left would not be ‘flag-wavers’ for the new prime minister. Unison general secretary Andrea Egan phrased it as “support does not mean subservience”.

What are the issues that the left wants to see Burnham go further on? Migrant rights, benefits, taxation, public services, housing, defence and Palestine were all areas mentioned repeatedly at the rally.

On migrant rights, Egan told the rally “we need to see the home secretary’s attacks on our migrant worker stop” and criticised the government’s proposed changes to the indefinite leave to remain process. Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP also argued that the government’s proposed reform of social care would not be possible unless the government changed course on migration policy.

Likewise, Kim Johnson MP said of Burnham’s conference speech: “What I was very disappointed by [was] he talked about social care, he talked about workers, but what he didn’t say is the workers that we are reliant on are migrant workers who buoy up our social care system”, before adding “I have to say how disappointed I am that we have a home secretary like Shabana Mahmood – Shabana Mahmood has gone further than any Tory home secretary – Suella [Braverman] or Priti Patel. It’s a disgrace in terms of what she is doing”.

Nadia Whittome MP was equally strong, telling the rally: “Rather than following the far-right’s tune on migration, the government should open safe routes and build an immigration and asylum system with compassion and dignity at its heart.”

Whittome’s contribution also brought up other key areas that the left say they will be pushing for Burnham to be bolder on, including housing and public services. She called for the government to introduce rent controls and to take utilities into public ownership.

While Burnham did say in his speech that he would be make it easier for the government to take water companies into public ownership, he stopped short of committing to do so.

But Whittome wasn’t alone in calling for public ownership of public services. Richard Burgon MP was also among those who made the same call at the rally.

And other speakers used their time on the platfor to argue that the government should be investing more in public services. Fire Brigades Union general secretary Steve Wright said his union was pushing for 5,000 more firefighters, alongside the government to recruit more teachers, nurses and care workers.

Throughout the rally, speaker after speaker made the case for how this investment in public services could be funded – increased taxation on the wealthy.

Domestic policy wasn’t the only issue on the agenda though. A number of panellists welcomed the shift in government policy on Palestine, with the new trade ban on Israeli settlements having been announced by foreign secretary Ed Miliband.

Nevertheless, they also made the case for the government to go further. Labour NEC member Jess Barnard called for a “full and total arms embargo” to be imposed on Israel, alongside more extensive sanctions. Similarly, Whittome argued for an end to all military cooperation with Israel.

The Socialist Campaign Group is the grouping of left-wing MPs in the House of Commons, founded by -among others – Tony Benn. It is chaired by Rebecca Long-Bailey, who came second to Keir Starmer in the 2020 Labour leadership election.

Amongst the public, the Socialist Campaign Group’s politics is most closely associated with Jeremy Corbyn’s time as Labour leader. Corbyn himself was a member of the group until his expulsion from Labour.

Whether the Socialist Campaign Group is successful in pushing the party leadership to the left remains to be seen. Still, the mood from their rally is clear – this is a wing of the party that is not content with simply cheerleading for Burnham, nor is it satisfied that him replacing Starmer is alone sufficient to deliver the kind of transformative change they want to see.

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

The post Labour left vows to fight for more radical policy platform from Andy Burnham appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.

While the speech mostly focused on changes to government housing policy, she also used it to attack Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.

She told the hall: “Let’s remember on everything we have done for workers’ rights, for renters’ rights, Nigel Farage and Reform fought us every step of the way. But they’ve been exposed, haven’t they?

“Farage isn’t standing up to vested interests. He’s falling at their feet. Does anyone really think that Farage’s crypto billionaire sugar daddies are handing him millions, because he’s standing up for the working people of Britain? Give me a break.

“If he’ll sing you happy birthday for seventy quid, just imagine what he’d do for seventy million. He’s shown whose side he’s on.”

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

The post ‘He’s shown whose side he’s on’ – Angela Rayner slams Nigel Farage in conference speech appeared first on Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK's progressive debate.