Burnham’s broken Britain: PM’s socialist dream quickly turning into a nightmare

The Daily T

The episode critiques Andy Burnham's recent political proposals, characterizing them as a radical socialist agenda that threatens to undermine

Key takeaways

• Andy Burnham's push for Proportional Representation (PR) is viewed as a strategy to ensure permanent coalition governments with the Lib Dems as kingmakers.
• The early release of prisoners, including violent offenders, is causing significant alarm among victims and the public.

Main topics

• Prison early release policies
• Proportional Representation (PR) debate

Notable quotes

He's basically being... a left-wing radical. He's just doing it in a slightly nicer suit than Corbyn ever wore.

Conclusion

The episode serves as a warning against political idealism that ignore

Transcript preview

Speaker 7 (0:00) you Speaker 7 (0:03) The Telegraph. Speaker 6 (0:09) Hey friends, Americans living abroad can legally vote in the U.S. election. Register or get tailored support at votefromabroad.org. Look, state deadlines are super close, so don't waste another second. Go to votefromabroad.org now and click Request My Ballot. Ask to receive it by email. All you gotta do is fill it out and send it back in. Don't miss this chance to shape the future. Don't delay. Votefromabroad.org. Speaker 7 (0:35) Cooking up a storm. Dressing to impress. Staying fit and healthy. Whatever interests you, you'll find it in The Telegraph's newsletters. Explore the complete collection, from recipes with Diana Henry to fashion and beauty with me, Lisa Armstrong. Get the best of our journalism delivered to your inbox. Visit telegraph.co.uk slash newsletters today. Speaker 2 (1:03) God bless the Prime Minister. The words there of a prisoner released early today from jail. Speaker 5 (1:10) Burnham's barnstorming speech is already beginning to unravel with violent inmates on the streets, no appetite for reversing Brexit and the economy continuing to tank. Speaker 2 (1:21) Welcome to The Daily Tee with me, Tim Stanley. And Speaker 5 (1:24) me, Camilla Tominey. I understand this whole idea of prisons being overcrowded. In fact, an inmate from... HMP Brixton said, it's really bloody crowded in there. It would be. It's a prison, mate. But at the same time, the idea of... It's not Speaker 2 (1:37) what it was. Speaker 5 (1:38) It's not what it was. We Speaker 2 (1:39) just Speaker 5 (1:39) had much more space. But the idea of actually releasing... wife beaters, I think is beyond the pale. Not least when you listen to a lot of the kind of Labour lefty Jess Phillips-esque rhetoric on violence against women and girls. We just had Bridget Philipson talk on the Daily T at the Labour Party conference about her work in a woman's refuge. What's she thinking now as Women and Equalities Minister looking at all this? Tim, before we get into why Burnham's barnstorming speech is coming back to haunt him, shall we give our coverage at the Conservative Party Conference a plug? We're going there from Saturday to Wednesday. We're in Birmingham for days. It's the longest one. It is the longest one. For the party Speaker 2 (2:19) that's in third or second or first position, I can't. Not first, never first. Never first. It is the longest one, yes. Speaker 5 (2:26) So we've got a Sunday afternoon event with young Conservatives, if that isn't an oxymoron, and Poppy Coburn because she's also young. which is great. And I think loads of people have signed up for that. Then on Monday, we're going to be with Jacob Rees-Mogg. Speaker 2 (2:39) Yes, for the more mature Conservative. Indeed, Speaker 5 (2:42) for the more traditional Conservative. X-rated Speaker 2 (2:44) Conservative. Indeed. Speaker 5 (2:45) For the angry Conservative, we've got Alistair Heath and Annabel Denham decrying the state of things on Tuesday. And I think in between, we're going to be speaking to Andrew Griffith, the new Shadow Chancellor. And of course, we'll be analysing what now has to be a barnstorming speech from Kemi Badenock on Wednesday. Speaker 2 (3:01) What's she going to do to beat that? Speaker 5 (3:03) Talking of Alistair Heath, who I just had a little chat with downstairs. Now, he's of the opinion, and he's written a very punchy column to this end today, that Andy Burnham is, quotes, a maniac. And let me just break that down for you. He's basically saying, listen, this is unashamed socialism. He is basically being... a left-wing radical. He's just doing it in a slightly nicer suit than Corbyn ever wore. And because he's nice looking and he's kind and he cries because his father passed away recently, the public is just going to swallow it because it's kind of nice socialism, not nasty socialism. And he points to a couple of things. The fact that he believes the Overton window has suddenly shifted on Brexit. We were talking about realigning. Then we were maybe talking about the next manifesto featuring... the word rejoin. We're now openly debating a second referendum, which is the kind of talk that gets Ed Davey cancelled. But apparently coming from the man from Makerfield, it's fine, even though his own constituency voted 65 % leave. Alistair also concerned about this proportional representation proposal, the idea that he actually wants to change the electoral system to basically fix it for Labour to be in power forevermore. Speaker 2 (4:18) Andy Burnham keeps talking about consensus, but there's a paradox here, which is that his agenda for Britain is just what Labour has always wanted to do. Speaker 5 (4:29) Yes. Speaker 2 (4:30) It's a bucket list of stuff that either wasn't really discussed at the last election, or in order to win, Starmer had to ignore or reject. So Starmer had red lines on the EU, which included staying out of the customs union, staying out of the single movement, no free movement. Speaker 5 (4:47) Yeah. Speaker 2 (4:47) Burnham has just torn that up. Now, if you're a left-wing person, that makes sense because you want to be back in the EU. Same with PR, same with a national care service, same with a whole lot of other stuff, which just we were not told about before. But the frustrating thing is, it's a very radical set of proposals, but he keeps framing it as consensus. It's not, Speaker 4 (5:10) though, is it? Speaker 2 (5:10) Because, as I have said in a previous podcast, he's a very good communicator. and the right can't ignore that or pretend he's not, he might get away with it because the vibe is that he's meeting the public halfway, when in fact he's not. He's dragging them to the left. And Alice's very important point, which I'm sure we'll come back to. PR is the most boring element of that. Public has already rejected it. We had a referendum on the alternative vote and people said no. As, by the way, the public said no to devolution in the Northeast about 20 years ago in a referendum then. Said no to remaining in the EU. But PR is actually very important because what it does is it guarantees that you can never, ever again have a one-party government. everything becomes a rolling sequence of coalitions. Speaker 5 (6:00) Yes. Speaker 2 (6:00) And if you think about it, who will always be the linchpin to those coalitions? Labour. Speaker 5 (6:05) No, Lib Dems. Oh, God. Speaker 2 (6:08) No, seriously, you will always get Labour. Yes, Speaker 5 (6:10) that's right. Ed Davey, the kingmaker. Labour and the Speaker 2 (6:12) Tories slash reform getting the most votes, getting the most seats in Parliament. But you will always have to reach out to smaller parties in order to command a majority. And Alice's point is that... A lot of Labour MPs actually don't like this and have always been opposed to PR for precisely that reason. And Burnham is basically throwing his own party under the bus. It is more important to him to have a permanent coalitional centre-left establishment in Britain than it is for Labour to win majorities. And why is he doing this? It all comes back to that strange obsession with Margaret Thatcher. Yes. The idea that in the 80s, not only did Maggie sell things off... But she also kneecapped local government, like militant Liverpool, because that was going so well. And through the first-past-the-post system, she was able to command large majorities despite never winning more than 44 % of the vote. And the left, along with wanting to muzzle the popular press, has ever since then had this fantasy of, could we break the Tory party or reform forever? Speaker 5 (7:18) by Speaker 2 (7:18) changing the electoral system so that you can never get rid of us. Speaker 5 (7:23) Well, isn't he in that mission reminiscent of what we heard from Liz Truss yesterday? Liz Truss thinks the entire mechanics of Blair and Brown needs to be smashed up in order for Britain to prosper. Burnham is equally radical just on the left in saying the entire mechanics of Thatcherism needs to be smashed up in order for Britain to prosper. You made that point about Keir Starmer. I mean, actually... Andy Burnham, in all of his, we don't want point scoring, we want political consensus. It's nonsense. He's basically saying, when I say political consensus, I mean I need to persuade people to agree with me and do what I want to do for Labour. Starmer said, I'm going to lead a government of service. And he made a point, didn't he, on the steps of Downing Street saying, even if you didn't vote for me, I want to take you with me. Whereas Burnham is kind of pretending to do that, but he's much, much more dogmatic than Starmer ever wants. There is something, by the way, maniacal about the PR if it allows, for instance, Zach Polanski of the Greens to have any role in a functioning government in the UK. This guy is an extremist. But that's more important to the left. I know, but that is so irresponsible. Speaker 2 (8:32) I know, but it's more important to the left in its Manichaean vision of good versus evil. left good, right evil. It's more important to them to... always keep Nigel Farage or Kemi Badenok out of government than it is to run the risk of letting in Zach Polanski. I know, but people... That just doesn't bother them. But Speaker 5 (8:50) Zach Polanski with the whole let's legalise heroin. My son was coming back from a politics A-level lesson and said, did you know that a Green councillor has called for all prisons to be closed down? Yes. I said, no, I hadn't heard that, but it doesn't surprise me. You know, let's just... And we're going to get on to early release in a minute. Speaker 2 (9:06) And Speaker 5 (9:06) there are strong Speaker 2 (9:06) anti-Semitic vibes coming out Speaker 5 (9:07) of Speaker 2 (9:07) them as well. And I think that... One thing that was underappreciated about the conference was how in 12 months it's gone from a party inadequately, unconvincingly trying to walk a line between Israel and Palestine to a party which is now just pro-Palestine. Speaker 5 (9:25) Yes, it is. Speaker 2 (9:25) And that's a big shift that he has pulled off. And by putting Ed Miliband in as foreign secretary, that cements this. That's a big change in Labour Party policy. and in British policy that I don't think has been appreciated. But having said all of this, if his speech was about the past, Margaret Thatcher, we're