Burnham’s triple lock gamble

Well, look, um, I mean, that was obviously the theme.

There was loads of policy in there.

Shall we just kind of rattle through some of, uh, what he actually announced? I've got a list here.

Yeah.

Right, we had housing, uh, help to buy, and a leasehold bill by the end of this year, which is interesting.

I don't think we'd had that timing before.

On water ownership, we had announcements that, uh, the Thatcher era ban on public ownership of water companies would be repealed.

We can talk about how revolutionary that is.

I think there's bigger legal problems that this government has to overcome on that.

He announced that the, the government would de-link electricity and gas prices.

That's already started, but a decent announcement to make, depending on what it means.

Uh, and then of course, we had the big national care service announcement.

Now, we were told there would be more detail on the funding of this, and we got it.

The fact that this is the first prime minister in a long time who has dared to even talk about the triple lock.

Now, what Andy Burnham said was the triple lock on pensions, which guarantees that pen- the state pension every year rises by earnings inflation, or two and a half percent, will be changed so that basically earnings will be taken out of that calculation.

Become a double lock, in effect.

It becomes a double lock.

Now, I'm told Downing Street is running around telling everybody it's still a triple lock because there's some kind of long-term link to earnings.

Yeah.

But I think that's a mistake.

You might as well embrace it.

He said it up there on the stage.

They are going after the triple lock.

That is bold.

That is radical.

Well, look, um, I mean, that was obviously the theme.

There was loads of policy in there.

Shall we just kind of rattle through some of, uh, what he actually announced? I've got a list here.

Yeah.

Right, we had housing, uh, help to buy, and a leasehold bill by the end of this year, which is interesting.

I don't think we'd had that timing before.

On water ownership, we had announcements that, uh, the Thatcher era ban on public ownership of water companies would be repealed.

We can talk about how revolutionary that is.

I think there's bigger legal problems that this government has to overcome on that.

He announced that the, the government would de-link electricity and gas prices.

That's already started, but a decent announcement to make, depending on what it means.

Uh, and then of course, we had the big national care service announcement.

Now, we were told there would be more detail on the funding of this, and we got it.

The fact that this is the first prime minister in a long time who has dared to even talk about the triple lock.

Now, what Andy Burnham said was the triple lock on pensions, which guarantees that pen- the state pension every year rises by earnings inflation, or two and a half percent, will be changed so that basically earnings will be taken out of that calculation.

Become a double lock, in effect.

It becomes a double lock.

Now, I'm told Downing Street is running around telling everybody it's still a triple lock because there's some kind of long-term link to earnings.

Yeah.

But I think that's a mistake.

You might as well embrace it.

He said it up there on the stage.

They are going after the triple lock.

That is bold.

That is radical.