Ed Miliband<\/a> or former health secretary Wes Streeting.<\/p>\n![\"Andy](\"https:\/\/static.independent.co.uk\/2026\/07\/02\/19\/2284366766..\")
Andy Burnham gave more details of his plans to LBC (Getty)<\/p>\n
Explaining why he has not picked someone to steer his economic policy, he said: \u201cIt’s been a little frustrating for me in the last sort of two weeks, because Westminster goes into its normal mode, and it wants to endlessly speculate about personalities before policy and before direction. I very deliberately have said \u2018no, I’m going to set out a new direction for the country first.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
On taxes though, he noted: \u201cI stick by the manifesto and the promises that it made. So, let me be absolutely clear about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, he added: \u201cThere is some room within that manifesto for movement on tax, so if you take business rates, for instance, I believe there is a case for higher business rates on warehouses and the major developments we see on the outskirts of our cities, so that we can cut business rates for pubs, and I’ve proposed a 20 per cent cut and lift some high street businesses out of business rates altogether.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it’s important to, if you like, prioritise and reward the businesses that bring social benefit, the businesses that bring people together, the bars, the restaurants, the coffee shops, the hairdressers, because the high street really needs to get more of our attention.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Burnham also insisted he plans to work with other parties wherever he can and suggested that he could find common cause with Tory leader Kemi Badenoch in taking a much tougher approach to grooming gangs.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, he added his voice to demands that the ringleader of the Rochdale grooming gang is deported.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cI often have people say to me, I just scream at the radio, tell us what you would do, and I kind of feel politicians have to answer that call from the public, say what we’ll do, but then also work to find common ground with other parties where we can.<\/p>\n
\u201cBritain does need something different. We’ve had a decade where politics really has not been working for people at all. We can’t do more of the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
He admitted that his generation of politicians has \u201cfailed\u201d and needs to offer something better.<\/p>\n
![\"Burnham](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/01KWJ154C0YG899EB7EYEY1XX3.jpg\")
Burnham spoke to Andrew Marr (PA)<\/p>\n
In a dig at Sir Keir Starmer\u2019s style of answering questions by talking about the record of previous Tory governments, he added: \u201cYou can’t go around pointing fingers when you haven’t been good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
He promised to rule by three principles which he has developed in Manchester.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’ve said place first, not party first, problem solved. Solving, not point scoring, long term, not short term, and I think those are three good principles to underpin British politics at a national level going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Burnham would not confirm though that he would support a bank holiday if England wins the men\u2019s world cup.<\/p>\n
Saying it \u201cwould be fantastic\u201d, he noted: \u201cWe struggled to beat Congo so let\u2019s not get ahead of ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tory shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride said: \u201cBritain needs to brace for yet another Labour tax bombshell from Andy Burnham. <\/p>\n
\u201cDespite more than \u00a360bn of tax rises under Rachel Reeves, sending the tax burden to a record high, Burnham thinks there is still \u2018room for movement on tax\u2019. Unless he urgently rules out raising taxes, we will see business and investor confidence draining in another summer of damaging speculation. <\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of raising taxes Labour should be getting a grip of spending, but Andy Burnham won\u2019t touch the ballooning benefits bill. He will double down on all the mistakes Labour have already made.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670663,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[124490,19306,6494,309,59,57,58,11237,224501,109825,184837,50,6487,229,84397,11250,58030,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-670662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-andrew-marr","tag-andy-burnham","tag-color-image","tag-england","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-horizontal","tag-interview-event","tag-leaving","tag-london-england","tag-news","tag-photography","tag-politics","tag-politics-and-government","tag-showing","tag-talking","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}