Andy Burnham Blasted for “Breathtaking Hypocrisy” as PM Poses as Champion of UK High Streets
Andy Burnham has been accused of “breathtaking hypocrisy” after presenting himself as a champion of Britain’s struggling high streets while opposition politicians claim that Labour’s own policies are making life harder for businesses.
The Prime Minister is embarking on a national tour designed to reconnect his Government with voters and demonstrate that ministers are listening to concerns about the cost of living.
Burnham is expected to focus heavily on the state of Britain’s high streets, alongside a package of measures intended to ease pressure on households struggling with rising prices.
But the political response has been brutal.
Shadow Chancellor Sir Mel Stride accused the Prime Minister of attempting to portray himself as a defender of local businesses while, he claimed, Labour’s tax rises and regulatory policies are putting additional pressure on shops and other high-street firms.
The clash sets up a potentially damaging political battle for Burnham.
The Prime Minister wants his tour to demonstrate a new style of government — one that gets out of Westminster, listens to ordinary people and responds to their concerns.
His opponents, however, are determined to argue that the Government itself is contributing to many of the problems Burnham says he wants to solve.
Burnham’s high-street mission
The Prime Minister’s national tour comes shortly after he succeeded Keir Starmer as Labour leader and Prime Minister.
Downing Street has said Burnham wants to spend time listening to communities across Britain, particularly in areas where Labour’s support has weakened and regions affected by industrial decline.
The tour forms part of his wider ambition for a “10-year plan to bring back hope”, according to reports.
One of the central themes will be the cost-of-living squeeze.
Burnham is expected to announce measures aimed at giving consumers more protection and reducing some of the everyday financial pressures facing households.
His Government has also promised to focus on improving Britain’s high streets.
The Prime Minister’s spokesman said Burnham believes Westminster has become accustomed to telling people that problems such as hidden pricing and consumers being “ripped off” are simply unavoidable.
Burnham, according to Downing Street, does not accept that argument and wants to introduce pro-consumer measures designed to give households more “room to breathe”.
It is a message carefully designed to appeal to voters who feel that the political establishment has become detached from everyday life.
But it also provides his opponents with an obvious target.
Stride launches a furious attack
Sir Mel Stride has accused Burnham of hypocrisy.
The Conservative shadow chancellor argues that Labour cannot credibly present itself as the party of the high street while imposing policies that Conservatives say increase costs for businesses.
Stride claimed that Labour’s tax rises and red tape were “hammering our high streets”, forcing businesses to close, destroying jobs and increasing prices for consumers.
His criticism goes to the heart of the political argument.
Britain’s high streets have been struggling for years with changing shopping habits, rising property costs, business rates, online competition and weaker consumer spending.
The pandemic accelerated many of those trends.
For independent retailers, cafés, restaurants and other small businesses, even relatively modest increases in operating costs can have a major impact.
Stride therefore wants voters to see Burnham’s high-street campaign as contradictory.
His argument is essentially simple:
If Labour genuinely wants thriving high streets, why introduce policies that businesses say make it more expensive to employ staff and operate premises?
That question is likely to follow Burnham throughout his summer tour.
High streets have become a political battleground
The future of Britain’s town centres has increasingly become a political issue.
For decades, the high street was at the heart of British community life.
Local shops provided employment, meeting places and services.
But online shopping has fundamentally changed consumer behaviour.
Large numbers of consumers now buy products online rather than travelling into town centres.
That has contributed to empty shops and declining footfall in many communities.
At the same time, retailers face pressure from wages, energy bills, rents and taxation.
The result is a difficult economic environment in which even successful businesses can struggle to maintain margins.
That makes the Government’s proposed high-street policies particularly important.
Burnham will need to show that his measures do more than produce favourable headlines.
He will need to demonstrate that they actually make it easier for businesses to remain open.
The Conservatives have their own plan
Stride has argued that Burnham should instead adopt Conservative proposals designed specifically to reduce the burden on high-street businesses.
Among the measures proposed by the Conservatives is scrapping business rates for thousands of high-street firms.
The Conservatives believe reducing the tax burden on smaller businesses would allow them to invest, employ more people and keep prices lower.
The political disagreement is therefore not really about whether Britain’s high streets need help.
There is broad agreement that they do.
The dispute concerns who is responsible for the problems and what should be done about them.
Labour says it wants to tackle unfair pricing, reduce household pressure and rebuild local communities.
The Conservatives say Labour’s own economic policies are contributing to the difficulties facing businesses.
Both parties are attempting to occupy the political ground of protecting ordinary communities.
Reform UK joins the attack
Reform UK has also seized on Burnham’s cost-of-living campaign.
The party’s Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick said the Prime Minister should scrap green levies and taxes on energy bills if he genuinely wants to help households.
Reform has also called for reductions in the benefits bill, arguing that this would reduce pressure on working households.
The intervention gives the Conservatives another dimension to the political attack.
Burnham is now facing criticism from both sides of the opposition, although Reform’s economic argument is more closely linked to energy prices and taxation.
The Prime Minister therefore faces a difficult task.
He needs to convince voters that Labour’s policies will improve their financial position while simultaneously defending decisions that opposition parties say are increasing costs.
The cost-of-living problem
The political sensitivity is heightened by the fact that the economy remains one of the public’s biggest concerns.
An Ipsos poll published at the end of July found that 30 per cent of respondents identified the economy as a leading concern, while 22 per cent specifically highlighted inflation or prices.
That makes Burnham’s decision to focus his early premiership on the cost of living politically understandable.
If households feel financially squeezed, the Government needs to demonstrate that it understands their concerns.
The danger is that voters may judge the Government by results rather than announcements.
If prices remain high, businesses continue closing and households still struggle to pay their bills, a national listening tour may quickly be dismissed as political theatre.
That is precisely the accusation being made by the Liberal Democrats.
“Vanity tour” accusation
Liberal Democrat Treasury spokeswoman Daisy Cooper described Burnham’s tour as a “vanity tour”, arguing that high-street businesses need more substantial intervention.
The Liberal Democrats have proposed measures including an emergency VAT reduction for hospitality, reform of business rates and action against landlords who leave commercial properties empty.
The criticism highlights another danger for Burnham.
It is not enough for Labour simply to say that it is listening.
Other parties are also offering their own solutions.
The Prime Minister will therefore have to demonstrate that his proposals are materially different and capable of producing measurable improvements.
A political battle over responsibility
The accusation of hypocrisy is particularly damaging because Burnham is attempting to establish a political identity based on listening.
He wants voters to see him as a Prime Minister who understands the problems experienced outside Westminster.
That means his opponents can attack him on the very ground he has chosen.
If Burnham visits a struggling high street and promises to help local businesses, critics can immediately point to taxation, regulation and employment costs.
The more prominently Burnham makes high streets part of his political brand, the more vulnerable he becomes to this criticism.
That does not necessarily mean the criticism is correct.
High-street decline has numerous causes, many of which predate the current Government.
Online shopping, changing consumer habits, commercial rents and decades of structural economic change cannot simply be blamed on one administration.
But politically, that distinction may not matter.
Businesses facing higher costs are likely to judge the Government on what is happening now.
The prison issue adds another complication
Stride also linked his attack on high streets to the Government’s controversial prison policy.
He accused Labour of “plotting to release dangerous criminals” and argued that the issue was making communities feel less safe.
That connection is strategically important.
Burnham wants his national tour to reassure communities.
The Conservatives want voters to associate the Government with two forms of insecurity: financial insecurity and concern about crime.
If Labour can be portrayed as failing on both fronts, the opposition hopes to undermine Burnham’s attempt to establish himself as a reassuring, practical Prime Minister.
The high street consequently becomes more than an economic issue.
It becomes a symbol of whether communities feel safe, prosperous and confident about their future.
Burnham’s challenge
The Prime Minister now has to turn his rhetoric into results.
Visiting struggling towns and speaking to shopkeepers can demonstrate that the Government is listening.
But eventually those shopkeepers will want to know whether their bills are falling, whether customers are returning and whether they can afford to employ staff.
Consumers will want to know whether prices are becoming more affordable.
And local communities will want to know whether empty shops are being replaced by successful businesses.
These are difficult problems with no instant solution.
Burnham’s 10-year strategy gives him a long timeframe, but political patience is rarely measured in decades.
Voters expect governments to demonstrate progress quickly.
The bigger economic test
The high-street controversy also reflects a wider question about Labour’s economic strategy.
The Government wants to provide greater protection for workers and consumers while maintaining strong public finances.
Those objectives can conflict.
Higher employment costs may benefit workers but increase costs for employers.
New regulations may protect consumers but impose additional bureaucracy on businesses.
Tax increases may raise money for public services but reduce the resources available to companies and households.
Burnham therefore has to strike a difficult balance.
He cannot simply promise to make everything cheaper without explaining how the Government will pay for the measures.
Chancellor John Healey has already indicated that fiscal discipline will remain important, limiting the scope for enormous new spending programmes.
That means many of Burnham’s solutions will have to come from changing rules and priorities rather than simply writing bigger cheques.
A fight Burnham cannot avoid
The Prime Minister’s high-street campaign is unlikely to end the political argument.
If anything, it could intensify it.
Every announcement gives opposition parties another opportunity to ask whether Labour is actually helping businesses or simply presenting itself as their champion.
Every visit to a struggling town creates expectations.
And every promise creates a future test of whether Burnham has delivered.
That is why the accusation of “breathtaking hypocrisy” matters.
It is not merely a colourful political insult.
It attacks the credibility of Burnham’s entire message.
He wants to tell Britain that his Government understands everyday struggles.
His opponents are responding that his Government is part of the problem.
The verdict will come on Britain’s streets
Ultimately, the argument will not be settled in Westminster.
It will be settled on Britain’s high streets.
If shops reopen, empty units are filled, footfall increases and small businesses report that conditions are improving, Burnham will have powerful evidence that his strategy is working.
If closures continue, prices rise and business owners complain about increasing costs, the opposition will return to its accusation that Labour’s high-street promises are little more than political presentation.
For now, Burnham is betting heavily on the politics of listening.
His national tour is designed to show that the Government is leaving Westminster behind and reconnecting with communities across Britain.
But the Prime Minister has chosen a difficult battlefield.
Britain’s high streets are facing genuine structural problems, and no government can solve them overnight.
The Conservatives, Reform UK and Liberal Democrats are already offering competing solutions.
And Burnham’s promise to champion local businesses has given them a particularly simple line of attack.
If the Prime Minister really wants to become the champion of Britain’s high streets, he will have to prove that his policies help the businesses he visits — not merely that he is willing to listen to them.
Until then, the accusation of “breathtaking hypocrisy” is unlikely to disappear.