For one night only, England’s pubs have become a frontline political issue — and not just because the football is on at an awkward hour. The UK government has decreed that the boozers can stay open until 5am tomorrow morning, so England fans can watch their team play Mexico in the World Cup (kick-off 1am).
Police unions, however, say the last-minute call has thrown shift planning into disarray, while also raising the familiar fear that late-night drinking, hot weather and high-stakes sport can combine into a spike in violence. They argue England’s route through the tournament was known months ago, and that forces could have prepared more smoothly.
Yet that same delay carries an obvious political payoff: an earlier decision would have blunted the optics of a timely, feel-good intervention from the top.
For a government that worries loudly about weak productivity and sluggish UK growth, the pubs extension also hints at a different calculation — that there’s a gap between the cost of things and the value of things. A country that occasionally loosens its tie can gain something hard to measure: a shared sense that life is good, that joy and heartbreak can be communal, and that those moments matter on the socio-political balance sheet.
And if “feeling good” supports the economy, that is a long-winded, highfalutin way of saying don’t expect to hear from me on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland tomorrow.
These bursts of national togetherness fade quickly, but Andy Burnham is now pointing to a more permanent boost for the pub trade — one that resembles the tax tinkering long associated with Irish politics.
Because he is talking of changing the tax law, it’s a longer-term lift than merely opening till five am on one particular Monday in one particular year.
Burnham’s big policy ideas
In his first broadcast interview since winning the Makerfield by-election a fortnight ago, Mr Burnham began to put flesh on the policy bones he unveiled in a Manchester speech earlier this week.
His proposal is to cut the rates charged by local authorities on pubs — and on selected other ‘high street’ retailers — as a way of keeping them alive. The money would be found by raising the business rates burden on warehouses and out of town retail parks.
The UK government has decreed that pubs can stay open until 5am tomorrow (stock image)
Speaking to Andrew Marr on LBC radio, he said: “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 proposed a 20% cut, and to lift some high street businesses out of business rates altogether.
“I say some and not all, because I 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, we need to bring life to the high street.”
Even as he made the pitch, Mr Burnham moved quickly to underline his “sound money” instincts, stressing the sums must still add up: “I am not undisciplined when it comes to the public finances – I was in the Treasury. I ran the Department of Health, and – it was tight – but we had a very healthy set of finances.
“I’ve run Greater Manchester, the fastest growing city region in the country for a decade, and you can’t make it the fastest growing city region in the country, Andrew, without strong business confidence. And from those rock solid public finances come business confidence that has helped us get the growth.”
Britain’s costly debt pile
That insistence on fiscal discipline also functions as a shield against a familiar line of attack from opponents: that Burnham represents a lurch to the left — a label dismissed by many on the actual left.
Still, his talk of tightening control over utility companies, raised both in Manchester and again on LBC, lands awkwardly against the backdrop of Britain’s large and very costly debt pile.
It means there is little space for big new spending commitments. Any shift in priorities would need to come either from redirecting what already exists or by moving the tax burden around. The pub rates policy is exactly that — fiscally neutral on paper, but with clear winners and losers. It is workable, but it also sits at the high end of political craft: pushing it through without spooking business and voters takes deft handling.
All governments, in practice, face the same constraint: they are limited by resources, even if they can borrow beyond what they have (or what taxpayers have, more to the point). The next British prime minister will meet the same pressures, demands and politically toxic decisions as Keir Starmer, Rishi Sunak et al. Burnham argues the status quo cannot hold — but meaningful change will upset powerful interests.
The state pension system is often cited as the most obvious place where governments might eventually be forced to intervene, particularly the “triple lock” formula for annual rises that many analysts say risks unsustainable costs.
In a low-growth economy, an ageing population paired with a pension structure that ratchets upward year after year can wreck the public finances. But tamper with it and you invite a twin backlash: the emotional charge of being branded a “granny basher”, and the electoral reality that pensioners are among the most reliable voters.
Yet the case for reform is often framed as intergenerational — freeing up money for younger people through council house building, apprenticeships, technical education, psychological care and other supports that mostly benefit voters least likely to turn out.
The long-term economics can be persuasive; the short-term politics are brutal.
Even the physical layout of the House of Commons – opposing rows of benches, set two sword lengths apart – is designed for confrontation
Burnham’s answer is that the political culture itself must change. That is why he leans so heavily on collaborative politics, the “politics of place first”, and his promise to soften the adversarial reflex of Westminster and Whitehall.
There is evidence the public may be receptive. Survey data routinely suggests voters are sick of perpetual bickering, finger-pointing and opposition for opposition’s sake; they want politicians to act — on almost anything.
But turning confrontation into collaboration means dragging a system built for conflict along with him. Even the physical layout of the House of Commons — opposing rows of benches, set two sword lengths apart — is designed for confrontation, not compromise, alongside a winner-take-all electoral system.
Defence is the kind of issue that should, in theory, force cooperation: long-term, national in character, and catastrophic if mishandled. Yet it remains a battleground.
From the resignations of Mr Starmer’s defence secretary and his junior last month to the raucous row over the defence financing package finally published this week.
That plan — viewed by some as a hospital pass coming Mr Burnham’s way — calls for a fifteen billion pound increase in defence spending, but provides no clear account of where most of the funding would be found.
In practice, that leaves the incoming prime minister and cabinet needing to identify £6.8 billion in cuts to capital budgets for schools, hospitals, roads and energy projects over the next four years.
On top of that comes the requirement to find an additional five billion in new money — likely through taxes. But with the UK already carrying the highest tax burden certainly since the end of the Second World War, and possibly ever, that is hardly straightforward.
And all of it is aimed at funding an increase in defence spending in preparation for a possible war with Russia — a hard message to sell.
By contrast, it is easier to build momentum around a single, tangible idea. For Mr Burnham, that is a sweeping expansion of devolution — shifting power and money away from Westminster/Whitehall to regions and big cities outside London.
He wants the change driven by “Number 10 north”, a satellite of the prime minster’s office based in Manchester.
Andy Burnham, holding a copy of the UK Defence Investment Plan during an appearance on the Tonight with Andrew Marr show on LBC radio
His LBC interview offered further clues: he has a location in mind near Manchester Piccadilly station and says he intends to work from there one day a week, if possible.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the new building comes with a massive illuminated “10” sign on it, to make it part of the Manchester skyline.
Burnham also signalled a different approach to welfare reform — “different to the way it’s done down here”. Rather than blunt reductions that leave struggling people worse off, he described support targeted at measures that could save money over time, such as getting young people into skilled jobs — even by offering free bus travel so they can reach work or training.
He argues more council houses would cut the overall housing bill while also producing harder-to-quantify gains for young people, from household formation to mental health and wellbeing — pressures that could become explosively expensive if ignored.
So beneath the bonhomie of Burnhamism sit difficult calls on welfare reform, defence spending and sweeping constitutional change.
Making it real will demand intense “political communication” to win the public backing these policies would need to survive the Westminster machine.
The past week has highlighted how carefully managed that communication is. His Manchester speech drew criticism from journalists because he took no questions afterwards — but the payoff was reams of analysis focused on the substance of what he said.
And speeches, in theory, should matter: structured arguments, deliberate narratives, carefully chosen themes — rather than off-the-cuff answers that become the story instead of the idea.
It was a similar dynamic on LBC: a respected but Labour-friendly interviewer, searching questions but not too deep, expanding on the Manchester themes while leaving the daily firefights for later — assuming Andy Burnham remains unchallenged in the party leadership race.
Above all with Andy Burnham, there is an emphasis on the F-word.
Which is of course “feeling”. As in “I don’t have a fully costed, highly detailed plan, but I do have a feeling that if we do this, things will be better”.
If the electorate “feel” it is the right approach, they will vote for it.
Feeling- or vibe-based politics are fashionable across the Western world.
The ability to generate a feel-good atmosphere around a party or its leader has become a prized political asset.
On the right, that F-word style is often reinforced with another familiar line: “it’s common sense”.
It is a phrase especially loved by the Reform UK party. People often label what they already agree with as “just common sense”, which makes it an effective — if overused — tool.
But “common sense” can be a poor compass through dense policy. From Daniel Kahneman’s work in psychology to Simon Kuper’s ‘Soccernomics’, there is plenty of evidence that what feels obvious and what the numbers show often diverge.
Banks make a fine living on this gap. Politicians can get away with it for a much shorter time.
Still, feelings — empathy, compassion — are not frivolous in politics.
Will Burnham’s ‘pub-o-nomics’ work out?
This week, an online article by The Observer’s Political Editor Rachel Sylvester traced Andy Burnham’s political influences back to the late Tessa Jowell, the Labour grandee and minster in the Blair and Brown years.
Jowell hired Burnham as a political researcher in 1994 and later urged him to run for office, which he did in 2001.
Sylvester wrote that David Lammy, the current deputy prime minster, and James Purnell — the PR man Burnham has tapped as his No 10 chief of staff — are also proteges of Tessa Jowell.
Wes Streeting is another inspired by Jowell, who was known for pushing humanity, empathy, collaboration and optimism in Westminster — qualities many assume are scarce in the palace by the Thames.
Sylvester writes: “At Westminster, intellectual ability is valued above emotional intelligence, and political strategy is prioritised over personal empathy. There have been more PPE than English graduates in Number 10. But voters are increasingly driven by their hearts as well as their heads.” (Burnham studied English; PPE is an Oxford course in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, sometimes derided as “Pretty Poor Education”).
Nigel Farage has turned pints down the pub into a political trademark
Emotion matters — and emotional intelligence versus plain old intelligence is not an academic distinction. Keir Starmer has the latter in buckets, but his want of the former has cost him his kingdom — to the point where even a very late pub-opening extension across England has attracted carping rather than cheering.
So will Burnham’s version of “pub-o-nomics” work? Who knows.
It does, at least, help him stake out ground as a left-of-centre figure aiming to compete with Nigel Farage, who has made pints in the pub a political signature (much of the Reform UK canvassing and appearances by Mr Farage in Makerfield took place in pubs).
But it also sounds like something worth attempting — as anyone who has ever arrived thirsty in a village without a pub can attest.
It is common sense that the disappearance of pubs, shops, libraries and coffee shops is leaving holes in the fabric of towns and villages, and even in some city centres.
That is one “feeling” Mr Farage and Mr Burnham can both tap — and the voters they are competing for will recognise it too.
The harder question is how, exactly, to reverse the decline — for our souls and humanity as well as mere GDP — particularly when the evidence is thin and the trade-offs are steep. But it is becoming more urgent by the month.
