Price caps aren't enough – we need to decide what we owe each other
Andy Burnham has hit the ground running.
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VAT scrapped on electricity bills on day one. A £2 bus fare cap on day two. A "cost of living government" promised for the months ahead. Not bad for a first week, especially after the drift that came before.
But this is short-term relief for dysfunction that runs much deeper, and fixing it means asking more fundamental questions.
Burnham implied as much with his promised ten-year plan for the economy, and there are encouraging signs he means it. The open critique of neoliberalism, the case for public control of life's essentials, the emphasis on growth in every postcode: all point to a government willing to question assumptions that have gone unchallenged for forty years.
That's because, at its heart, the conversation forming around this government is about more than prices. It's about power, and how much say people have over their own lives. It's about the job given up to care for a parent because nothing else was available; the deposit never saved because the rent takes it first; the winter spent deciding which rooms to heat.........
