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Andy Burnham risks becoming Labour’s answer to Liz Truss, Kemi Badenoch has said.
The Tory leader made the comparison as she accused the new Prime Minister of pursuing unfunded policy commitments and wanting to take Britain back to the 1970s.
In a speech in central London, Mrs Badenoch said: “Four years ago, a prime minister announced policies without making savings to pay for them and it didn’t end very well.”
Ms Truss announced £45bn in uncosted and unaudited tax cuts upon taking power in September 2022, triggering a bond market crisis that forced her departure from No 10 after only 49 days.
The Conservatives fell in the opinion polls during her short-lived premiership and were unable to recover in time for the 2024 general election, slumping to a record loss.
During his first week of his premiership, Mr Burnham has announced three flagship economic policies, only for rows over their funding to break out almost immediately.
Taking questions from the media after her remarks, Mrs Badenoch was asked whether she believed there were parallels between the new Prime Minister and Ms Truss.
She responded: “I did allude in my speech to a Budget four years ago that didn’t go very well. There were other factors but the main factor was that the budget was not balanced – spending without funding.
“Liz Truss wanted to pay £150bn, but hadn’t said where the savings would come from. It’s time for Andy Burnham to start talking about where he would find the savings.”
The funding for Mr Burnham’s £850m VAT cut on electricity bills will need to be published in the autumn Budget, following disputed claims that it would come from savings made by scrapping Sir Keir Starmer’s digital ID scheme.
Just two hours after the policy was announced, Darren Jones, one of Sir Keir’s closest allies who oversaw the policy while in government, revealed that the money for digital IDs had never been allocated.
Questions have also been raised over the details of Mr Burnham’s plan to introduce a £2 cap on single bus fares outside London.
No 10 said it would be covered by lending – rather than giving – funding to developing nations to help them hit climate targets. However, Heidi Alexander, the Transport Secretary, was repeatedly unable to say whether any interest would be paid on those loans.
Earlier on Thursday, one of Mr Burnham’s own ministers then admitted his 20 per cent cut on business rates for pubs had not yet been fully funded.
Mrs Badenoch said: “Every day, Andy Burnham seems to float a new expensive idea. A national care service that costs £18bn. Building as many houses as in the 1970s, costing £13bn.
“On Monday, he said he was thinking about increasing the personal allowance. On Tuesday, he was against it. On Wednesday, he was for it again. Does anyone know what he’s thinking today? Because I don’t.
“He doesn’t actually know what he wants to do. He is thinking out loud. All we know is that it is going to cost a lot of money. So I want to be very clear – Andy Burnham needs to rule out tax rises to pay for his spending spree.”
Following confusion over his suggestion that he would raise the £12,570 tax-free personal allowance, Mr Burnham eventually said he would look at it “at the Budget alongside everything else”.
The Prime Minister had hinted in an interview on the eve of taking office that he was looking at ending the five-year freeze, saying that “frustration” over the issue came up frequently on the doorstep at the Makerfield by-election.
However, government sources then said there were no plans for any changes in the short term, after concluding it would cost £3.7bn at a time when the public finances were tight.
Badenoch mystified by Burnham’s 1970s romanticism
Mr Burnham insisted he had answered questions about tax “honestly” and said he would consider unfreezing the allowance but had not yet committed to doing so.
Mrs Badenoch also accused her counterpart of wanting to take Britain back to the 1970s on account of his plans for state intervention in the market, a mass social housing programme and a renewed focus on technical education.
She said: “I think it’s weird that Andy Burnham talks about the 1970s as if they were wonderful when everyone else thinks they were terrible.
“Endless strikes, rubbish not being collected, bodies not being buried, inflation at 25 per cent and a chancellor going cap-in-hand to the IMF. A chancellor called Healey, by the way, let’s not forget that.
“Britain in the 1980s and 1990s was an optimistic place, not because people were told to be optimistic, but because they were living in a growing economy full of jobs and opportunity.”
In a swipe at both his Tory and Labour predecessors, Mr Burnham last week lamented four decades of “neoliberalism” from the 1980s onwards, claiming it accelerated Britain’s decline.
In a pointed warning, Mrs Badenoch told Mr Burnham – who spent nine years as the Mayor of Greater Manchester before returning to Westminster to replace Sir Keir – to “step up”.
She said: “Andy Burnham just wants to make people happy so he’s talking about clubbing and going to the pub and cheaper bus fares but he is not the mayor of Manchester, these are mayor of Manchester ideas. He needs to step up.”
A Labour spokesman said: “Andy Burnham is bringing back hope after Kemi Badenoch’s Tory Party nearly broke Britain. More of the same failed Tory politics that let people down for years is a recipe for disaster and will only hold Britain back.
“In just his first days as PM, Andy Burnham has taken immediate action to give families breathing space to help with the cost of living, by cutting tax on electricity bills and capping bus fares at £2, as well as slashing business rates for pubs, clubs and live music venues.
“But this is just the start. The economy-crashing Tories haven’t got a clue.”
