Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch last week accused Prime Minister Andy Burnham of advocating policies that evoke the 1970s. In a speech, she claimed Burnham was 'pining for endless strikes, rubbish not being collected, bodies not being buried, inflation at 25% and a chancellor going cap-in-hand to the IMF'.
Prime Minister Burnham, however, has linked Britain's current challenges to decisions made during the Thatcher era. Upon entering No 10, he stated that 'political power was centralised, economic power privatised, large parts of the country de-industrialised, and they still haven’t recovered'.
Burnham's government has appointed a chancellor named Healey and imposed price controls on buses. His political approach is informed by his nine years as Mayor of Manchester, where he oversaw the city's development as an 'enterprising capitalist city'. He attributes Manchester's success to a pragmatic partnership between government and business, a model he believes can be replicated nationwide.
The Prime Minister has also explicitly rejected the 20th-century central planner's adage that 'the gentleman in Whitehall knows best', advocating for devolving power to better address local needs.