Andy Burnham has just launched a hard-left coup behind voters' backs, and he will crush the UK with tax after tax, according to a scathing analysis by Harvey Jones. Jones warns that Burnham won't be able to control the forces he has unleashed.
The Hard Left's March Through Institutions
The hard left discovered decades ago that no sensible electorate would ever vote for them, so they changed tactics and launched what they call a 'march through the institutions'. Little by little, they have seized control of the state. Left-wing thinking now dominates the civil service, the NHS, schools, universities, the public sector, several police forces, every HR department, and all of Labour's back benches. Now the march is complete, and it will be a disaster for Britain.
Labour's Election Victory
At the last general election, Britain was desperate to get the Tories out. Keir Starmer sold himself as the sensible, competent alternative, but voters rightly remained suspicious. Labour won just 33.7% of the vote, with barely one in four adults turning out for them. They were right to be wary. Starmer promised tax rises totalling just £8.5 billion, none of them hitting 'working people'. Then Chancellor Rachel Reeves piled on £66 billion, crushing the economy in the process. But that is nowhere near enough for the left. Now Starmer is out, and Burnham is in. The left has won.
Burnham's True Colours
Burnham comes across as a moderate, blokey chap, but he is weak as water, taking the shape of whatever receptacle he is poured into. First a Blairite, then a Corbynite, and now in the embrace of what Labour calls the soft left, but the rest of us would label the hard left. How else would ordinary people describe the likes of Louise Haigh, Ed Miliband, Angela Rayner, potty-mouthed tax nutter Torsten Bell, and Burnham's extreme left policy guru Miatta Fahnbulleh? The Peckham MP says Britain is 'screaming for change'. We will be screaming when we see what she has in mind.
More Tax Demands
Fahnbulleh wants more tax: higher National Insurance, higher capital gains tax, wealth taxes, and all the rest. The Office for Budget Responsibility has repeatedly warned that hiking taxes yet again will wreck the incentive to work and invest, crush growth, and blow an even bigger hole in the public finances. The left will do it anyway. It is what they always do. Britain's tax burden is already at its highest level outside wartime. Yet the entire conversation on the left is about pushing it even higher. They pretend it will only hit the wealthy, but it won't. Already, 17,000 millionaires have left Britain because they did not like what Reeves was doing. More will follow.
The Left's Spending Spree
The left won't care. The rest of us should, because we will pick up the bill. Our incomes, family homes, savings, and investments are all in the firing line as the left lines up a spending spree. And it will never be enough. Every day, left-leaning think tanks such as the New Economics Foundation, Resolution Foundation, and the Institute for Public Policy Research churn out new ideas for taxing, spending, and nationalising more. Their moment has come, and they are determined to seize it.
Burnham's Weakness
Burnham has already bowed to them over Gaza. He will bend the knee again and again. It still won't be enough. That is why former Corbynite shadow chancellor John McDonnell, an admirer of Chinese tyrant Chairman Mao, was brimming with tears at Burnham's victory. The left has worked for this moment for years. Now it is finally here, and without a single vote being cast outside of Makerfield. It happened by stealth. But when Burnham's tax bomb explodes, things will get very noisy indeed. Taxpayers have already had enough. The left will simply give them more.
