No Answer Andy’s Big Top, More Bills, More Rows, Fewer Answers.
Welcome back, dear readers, to Week Four beneath Westminster’s Big Top of Blunders, where Andy Burnham is back from his holidays, the Treasury contortionists are eyeing everybody’s wallets, the immigration trapeze is swinging dangerously overhead, and the Government has discovered a thrilling new way of communicating with the electorate, making their phones scream at them.
The Burnham era is barely a month old and already the promise of calm, competent government is colliding rather violently with reality. No Answer Andy still projects the reassuring manner of the friendly chap running the village fête, except behind him the coconut shy is ablaze, the tombola money has disappeared and somebody from the Treasury is asking pensioners to turn out their pockets.
This week’s opening act came courtesy of the emergency alert system, as phones erupted with wildfire warnings and prompted a backlash from people who believed the system was being used too readily. Reports suggested many responded by switching emergency alerts off altogether. If so, congratulations, Westminster. The emergency warning system may have managed the extraordinary feat of making people less likely to receive an emergency warning. It is like testing the circus fire alarm so relentlessly that the audience removes the batteries just before the tent catches fire.
Then came immigration, with Burnham arguing that asylum accommodation should be spread more evenly across the country, including wealthier communities. There is a serious argument about whether poorer areas have carried a disproportionate burden, but telling middle class Britain that it must now “share” the consequences of a migration system successive governments have struggled to control is inevitably politically explosive. With the policy already facing resistance and the prospect of legal challenges, the immigration contortionists are back, promising control, fairness, accommodation and community consent simultaneously. Even Cirque du Soleil would struggle with that position. I think I can hear them screaming “Bring Back Rwanda!”
The prisons act was no more reassuring this week. Reoffending among prisoners released early has raised fresh questions about the Government’s attempt to relieve overcrowding, particularly amid claims that usable prison capacity remains tangled in bureaucracy. When offenders released to ease pressure simply end up back inside, the policy starts resembling a revolving circus door. Out they go, round they come, back inside, another spin please, taxpayers are paying.
Healthcare brought a much more serious controversy over access to PSA blood tests for prostate cancer this week. PSA testing has genuine limitations, including false positives and overdiagnosis, which is why screening policy has long been contested. But when changes affect men worried about one of Britain’s biggest cancer killers, the Government owes them absolute clarity. This is where the circus stops being funny. Patients deserve straight answers, not another administrative maze.
Then came this week’s premium grade Westminster irony. The Energy Secretary, who supported Labour’s VAT policy on private school fees, reportedly sends her own children to private school. Her family choices are her own and her children should be left entirely out of politics, but the political contradiction inevitably writes its own punchline. Labour has always possessed talented contortionists, but “more expensive for you, affordable for me” is an especially impressive manoeuvre.
Principles for the audience, practical arrangements backstage.
Meanwhile, the Treasury has apparently spotted another unattended collection of wallets. Reports suggest pensioners and entrepreneurs could face a tax hit running into tens of billions as Burnham searches for ways to fund his programme. Speculation is not policy, and the eventual Budget will determine what actually happens, but the central problem is already obvious. Britain says it wants entrepreneurs to build businesses, investors to invest and workers to save for retirement, while governments repeatedly discover that the resulting businesses, investments and savings look remarkably tempting when they need more revenue.
The great Westminster magician can promise spending with a flourish of the wand. Eventually, however, he has to show us where the rabbit came from.
And because the programme apparently lacked one final act, Labour’s new Greater Manchester Mayor became embroiled in questions over enforcing rules around single sex spaces. A direct question produced an answer critics regarded as anything but direct, providing yet another contribution to this Government’s rapidly expanding collection of verbal balloon animals, impressive to watch being constructed, considerably harder to identify once finished.
Perhaps Westminster should simply hang a sign above the entrance.
NO ANSWERS GUARANTEED.
Four weeks in, the new circus already has arguments over asylum accommodation, released prisoners returning to custody, rows over healthcare, accusations of political hypocrisy, nervous pensioners and entrepreneurs wondering what the Treasury wants next, and another debate over whether politicians can answer straightforward questions with straightforward answers.
The balloon animals remain magnificent. FAIRNESS is enormous. INVESTMENT has particularly impressive ears. COMPASSION stretches halfway across the tent. CHANGE is so large it requires three special advisers to carry it.
But Britain knows the problem with political balloon animals.
However impressive they look, they are mostly air.
For now, No Answer Andy remains beneath the spotlight, smiling reassuringly while the Cabinet contortionists twist themselves around another week’s contradictions and the Treasury clowns wander through the audience checking for loose change.
The Big Top is still standing. Just.
Keep hold of your wallet.
READ ALL ABOUT IT: Links to this week’s top Labour circus acts below:
