What Andy Burnham needs to do now | James O’Brien - The Whole Show

£45 is just about the amount of money my wife and I spend on our supermarket shop once every two weeks. It isn't an insignificant amount to us, but it probably is to most other people.

Cut Employers Nics,Business Rates and Stamp Duty.
Raise the Air passenger levy especially on flights over 2,000 miles.
Reduce the IHT rate to 30%.
Freeze the minimum wage for two years.
Build some reservoirs and prisons
Fill the potholes.

Wes Streeting being in a job that Palantir would be interested in, is a worry.

Homelessness is a societal choice. We prioritize producing ever more wealth for those that have fantastic wealth already. The wealthy don’t want homelessness to go away because they benefit from the terror it instills in the working class, keep them breaking their backs to keep the wealthy in extravagant and ostentatious comfort.

Changing VAT mostly helps the wealthy. A better option could be to renationalise public transport and lower fares dramatically. That benefits workers and enables work / travel options for people who can't find local work. It's easier to keep track of public transport costs than manage VAT changes, business returns etc.

We should make the Tories pay back that 10 billion pounds they swindled from the public….. oh I forgot that’s yesterday’s news…. They get away Scott Free while the rest of the country gets on with attacking the immigrants and the refugees and the disabled and the poor and the mothers and anyone who isn’t the people causing the problems

Long live Mancunian.

Dont wanna bash on the scale of the potential saving from cost of electricity cauz 45 quid is 45 quid but the cost of living issue exists because even if people are in jobs, and even if they get raises every year to chase inflation, their higher wages now get significantly eroded by taxes. It sort of becomes a feeling like your wage is being capped, even when we dont talk about people on 100k+ a year. At this point, Im on a wait and see mode because its hard to judge without seeing the big picture but this alone was more of a gimmick than a much needed change.

Well the world is very frickin scary compared to when I was a child.

I've always said this about politicians that no matter what happens to them career wise and regardless of which party they are, they will never be cold, they will never be hungry, they will never go without in order to feed and clothe their children.

Well maybe the Green Party would be leading in the polls if the MSM weren’t in bed with the billionaires.

39yrs ago, I became homeless by leaving my physically abusive fiance. He became agitated on a night out, so I slipped away with just the clothes on my back and £15 in my purse. 9 months of sofa surfing began that night. After 6 weeks, the council offered me a flat, but it was at no.37, and my ex lived at no.39 on the same street, right next door. Because I refused this flat, I went to the bottom of the housing list. For much of this 9 months, I was working full-time and commuting 20miles into work, using my mum's address as my 'home address' to get work, even though she'd been threatened with eviction from her 1 bed council flat if she allowed me to move in. I'm now in my 60s and living in Switzerland, but have never forgotten how easy it was to fall through the net.

£45 is a pair of shoes bought without going into debt.

The people that would notice couldn’t afford to phone in they might be at the food bank or being fed by some church hall charity

Burnham needs to challenge the UK elites who claim to be 'for the people' while they ransack their jobs and dreams.
For example, the housing market. How can young people buy houses ? Answer: they can't.
Why ? Because the market is rigged to benefit land speculators, rentiers, builders and asset builders who extract maximum 'value' from the system.
The exception are the UK building societies. Owned by their members, not profiteers.

Homelessness is a mental health issue, not a lack of flats. SO many people get given flats and end up wrecking them and being back on the streets begging due to drug addictions, etc. They can't look after themselves, most of them. You need to set up managed accommodation.

I see it this way, it won't change much for me, however, this January and Feb that £45 could allow families or old people the chance to put the heating on a bit more, especially when Its really cold, so in that respect it could be very important to some people.

Sorry not true, Ireland have cut VAT on the hospitality sector from 13.5% to 9%. No upside to BREXIT.

Short term projects quickly implemented are exactly what are needed now! The electorate have to see and feel real changes. Get the public on board enough to get through the next election then look to long term projects. If labour can win the next election it will be because the people want Labour, not just to get rid of the Tories.

Cautiously optimistic