{"id":93896,"date":"2026-07-15T07:04:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T06:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=93896"},"modified":"2026-07-15T07:05:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T06:05:50","slug":"55-questions-for-andy-burnham-on-things-we-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/07\/15\/55-questions-for-andy-burnham-on-things-we-need-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"55 questions for Andy Burnham on things we need to know"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>These were the notes I used to prepare for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/07\/15\/what-will-burnham-do\/#gsc.tab=0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this morning's video<\/a>. Usually I do not share these. Today, I thought it was worth doing so. Mark him against them in 2029.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The hook<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We will have a new, bright, shiny and smiley Prime Minister from Manchester on Monday<\/li>\n<li>But what will he do?<\/li>\n<li>In truth, we have no more idea about his agenda than we did about Keir Starmer\u2019s<\/li>\n<li>That does not augur well<\/li>\n<li>So here are some decisions he will need to make, and will do so by default if he does not address them<\/li>\n<li>By his actions will we know the man<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Economic philosophy<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>To understand and use MMT thinking, or not<\/li>\n<li>To use fiscal rules, or not<\/li>\n<li>To make growth his goal, or not<\/li>\n<li>To put well-being and flourishing at the epicentre of his agenda instead, or not<\/li>\n<li>To tax wealth, more or not<\/li>\n<li>To have a policy of full employment, or not<\/li>\n<li>To leave the Bank of England independent, or not<\/li>\n<li>To take control of interest rates, or not<\/li>\n<li>To have genuinely integrated economic policy, or not<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Housing<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol start=\"10\">\n<li>To build council houses, or not<\/li>\n<li>To build these houses where people are, not where the government wants them, between Oxford and Cambridge, or not<\/li>\n<li>To give councils the power to borrow to build, or not<\/li>\n<li>To end the right to buy, or not<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Energy and environment<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol start=\"14\">\n<li>To do a Green New Deal, or not<\/li>\n<li>To build flood defences, or not<\/li>\n<li>To do nuclear, or not<\/li>\n<li>To allow oil and gas to continue in the North Sea, or not<\/li>\n<li>To make every building a power station, or not<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Infrastructure<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol start=\"19\">\n<li>HS2 to expand or even finish, or not<\/li>\n<li>To allow Heathrow to expand, or not<\/li>\n<li>To rebuild Manchester Oxford Road, or not<\/li>\n<li>And Ely North Junction, and so much more on the rail network, or not<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Utilities<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol start=\"23\">\n<li>To take control of water, or not<\/li>\n<li>To control electricity pricing to favour consumers and not suppliers, or not<\/li>\n<li>To invest heavily in the National Grid, or not<\/li>\n<li>To improve regulation or not<\/li>\n<li>To make nationalisation mandatory if standards are not met<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Health<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol start=\"28\">\n<li>To eliminate the causes of so much ill health in the UK, from ultra-processed food to excessive prescribing, or not<\/li>\n<li>To invest in support for those alienated by neoliberalism and deemed mentally unwell as a result, or not<\/li>\n<li>To invest in midwives to let life start well, or not<\/li>\n<li>To make hospice care an NHS provision, and right, or not<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Education<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol start=\"32\">\n<li>To permit education that meets the needs of children to find out who they are, or not<\/li>\n<li>To end the role of education in supplying pre-formed inputs for business use, or not<\/li>\n<li>To end student loans and cancel the debt, or not<\/li>\n<li>To free universities from the funding tyranny they now face, or not<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Community<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol start=\"36\">\n<li>To invest in communities so that young people have places to go, things to do, and in alcohol free environments, or not<\/li>\n<li>To support local government and enhance local decision making<\/li>\n<li>To reform council tax to deliver local tax justice<\/li>\n<li>To control the spread of second homes, requiring planning permission for use as such, or as a holiday home, and to charge for this right<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Justice and social security\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol start=\"40\">\n<li>To invest in rapid criminal justice, or not<\/li>\n<li>To provide a social safety net for people to rely on, or not.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Migration<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol start=\"42\">\n<li>To reform migration policy, or not<\/li>\n<li>To confirm the right of refugees, or not<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Democracy<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol start=\"44\">\n<li>To do proportional representation, or not<\/li>\n<li>To end all political donations over \u00a35,000, or not<\/li>\n<li>To end laws that discourage voting, or not<\/li>\n<li>To allow free votes on independence in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland every decade, or not<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Civil liberties and media<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol start=\"48\">\n<li>To channel laws on control of the media<\/li>\n<li>To give the BBC freedom without continual government interference<\/li>\n<li>To end oppressive laws on the right to protest<\/li>\n<li>To end the use of anti-terrorism laws on those who oppose government policy, or not.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Foreign policy<\/strong><\/p>\n<ol start=\"52\">\n<li>To undertake a proper defence review, or not<\/li>\n<li>To stand up to Israel, or not<\/li>\n<li>To support Palestinians, or not<\/li>\n<li>To stand up to the USA, or not.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>These were the notes I used to prepare for this morning&#8217;s video. Usually I do not share these. Today, I thought it was worth doing<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/07\/15\/55-questions-for-andy-burnham-on-things-we-need-to-know\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[204,35,16,87,147,118,174,224,106,223,140,97,154,150],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economic-justice","category-economics","category-ethics","category-health","category-inequality","category-labour","category-modern-monetary-theory","category-neoliberalism","category-politics","category-politics-of-care","category-scotland","category-tax-justice","category-wales","category-wealth-tax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93896"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93927,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93896\/revisions\/93927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}