There was something for almost everyone. Andy Burnham's speech at Labour conference was what most of the party's voters were hoping for. It began with a restatement of ambition on housing - more leaseholder reform, a curtailing of right to buy, greater local authority powers over private rental, and the option of expropriating slum landlords and empty houses. Reducing deposits to 2.5% for new builds for first-time buyers, which was pre-announced at the weekend, sounded like it could have been pinched from a Tory prospectus.
On water, there were more hazy promises of "public control". But this time there was more flesh on the skeleton. Repealing the Thatcher-era ban on taking water into public ownership is a symbolic gesture, as that could have been dispensed with by any legislation that took a water company back into state ownership. In the forthcoming water bill, there will be greater oversight and powers of intervention devolved to mayoralties. Bonuses for failing bosses will be stopped, there will be tougher consequences for failure with nationalisation being the ultimate sanction. Something Thames Water customers are likely to welcome. On energy, more home-grown renewables and domestic nuclear is to be encouraged, the unveiling of a national energy grid plan with local input, a new state-owned company called Great British Grid will be launched to enable its renovation, and market reform is coming - above all the speeding up of disentangling energy prices from gas prices.
Burnham moved on to care. Recalling his grandmother's experience with the care system, and the work put in by his late dad's care givers he said, with some emotion, that "I want to speak directly to our care workers: you are not invisible to me." And drawing attention to how the industry has been variously neglected by successive governments, he said "I am sorry my profession has let down yours for so long". The national care service was revisited, and he defined the vision as "person-centered high quality care service that starts in the home", according to the principle of everyone contributes, and everyone is covered. There will be no care charges taken from the basic state pension, and the idea is that people won't find their savings eaten up by escalating costs. Burnham said this would be as significant as the foundation of the NHS.
How to pay for it? The scrapping of the triple lock on pensions was trailed heavily before the speech, and when it came its replacement sounds very much like ... a double lock. The link with earnings after 2030 will be dropped, and instead the state pension will rise with inflation or 2.5%. Though Burnham strongly implied it will retain a relationship to wage levels. Eh? It sounded a bit of a muddle, and it's not clear how this would save money that would be ploughed into the care service.
On young people, there was the usual nod to parity of esteem re: academic and technical routes in education. There's also to be a stronger emphasis on comprehensive education as a means for securing the future. Likewise, his remarks on foreign policy were brief and offered no break with the established way of doing things - Russia, bad; Iran, bad; Palestine, two-state solution.
And rounding the speech off, Burnham riffed off the theme of fixing our broken politics. He said he would work cross-party on as much of his programme as possible, but noted how the Westminster system is the root of much of our problems. Referencing the possibility of a "divisive government" being elected on under 30% of the vote, he announced a national commission on electoral reform with an invitation to all parties to contribute. He also said the next Labour manifesto would have a clear commitment to changing the system. And from here, he moved on to Brexit. Unlike Keir Starmer who wouldn't touch the issue with a barge pole, Burnham was repeatedly scathing about its consequences. He went on to say the upcoming UK/EU summit will be an occasion for laying out the country's long-term relationship with the EU, and he will offer some options for structuring it. A code, as if it needed spelling out, for putting rejoining the EU back on the table.
Burnham began his speech saying it wasn't going to be a traditional conference speech. And really, it wasn't. There was no point scoring against the opposition parties. No lame jokes tied to cheap shots. It was, unusually, an address aimed at Labour's former coalition outside the hall. Everything here, the promise of breaking with 40 years of neoliberalism, the "rewiring of the state", fixing the foundations of British capitalism, the ambitions for the National Care Service, electoral reform, and a closer relationship to the EU, it was taking up the mantle of modernising the state and putting the country on a new trajectory. That's the promise, and - as we have seen - the record since entering Downing Street has been more mixed. But politically speaking, this was crafted to consolidate centre left and left voters, including not a few centrist voters and those on the soft right that like the idea of national renewal and EU alignment, behind Labour. If Burnham follows through and this programme is visibly making headway by the next election, then he may well get to oversee the fruits of his 10-year plan.
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