Question time.

Why does @AndyBurnham need to tour the country to discover that the cost of living is too high, people are keeping less and less of their own money, high streets have been decimated, rents are through the roof, social housing is in desperately short supply, and…

— James Foster (@JamesEFoster) August 9, 2026

By Liz S

From James Foster on X regarding the announcement of Andy Burnham doing a UK cost of living Tour this week:

“Why does @AndyBurnham need to tour the country to discover that the cost of living is too high, people are keeping less and less of their own money, high streets have been decimated, rents are through the roof, social housing is in desperately short supply, and inequality continues to grow?”

“None of this is a revelation. These problems have been documented relentlessly for years by official statistics, councils, charities, economists, researchers and, most importantly, the people living through them. On and on and on it goes”.

“Do we really need another politician touring the country to “listen” to people tell him what the data already makes abundantly clear? People don’t need another listening tour”

“They need action”.

“If you’re serious about tackling inequality, housing, declining living standards and the collapse of our high streets, the question isn’t what’s the problem? Because we already know. The question is: what are you actually going to do about it “?

Now James Foster lives in England and much of his observations in his above post are said by him in relation to the dire state within England, which is controlled by various UK governments, including Andy Burnham’s Labour party as the current UK government.

Though Scots have also been negatively impacted too , based on both the (too many) cruel decisions being made by various UK governments and also the lack of action via various UK governments as well, especially in respect to what has been a cost of living crisis since the time the Tory party were previously in charge of the UK State.

We all surely remember the time when Keir Starmer was once the Labour official opposition leader .

As the official opposition leader Starmer constantly decried the Tory UK government’s lack of effort and action upon the UK cost of living crisis.

Indeed Starmer declared that Labour would fix that crisis and so then ease the financial burden being suffered by the public within the UK, if a Labour government were elected in the next UK GE.

Yet hear we now are with a new Labour government since Labour won the GE in 2024, and now Labour are under a new leader/ PM , as the previous one was a total fraud and dud.

But what have they, Labour, really done that is truly significant in relation to the cost of living crisis ?

Well there has been nowt hugely significant that has truly helped ease the financial burdens being suffered by the (ordinary) people of their UK State.

Now Burnham’s tiny effort on ‘energy’ prices was more fanfare than substance , as he has only introduced “a temporary cut of VAT on household electricity bills from 5% to 0%, running for six months from October 1, 2026, to March 31, 2027″.

Not so much a real “breathing space” for us the public, more really where it seem that (way too) soon we will all be once again gasping for some respite from the high cost of living within their UK State.

The Guardian newspaper wrote of this that:

“Critics and analysts argue this is not a true solution to energy poverty because the savings are small and do not cover gas bills”.

Andy Burnham seems far more concerned with promoting his own brand in endless TikTok videos on social media (Style over substance) than being the serious leader (with serious solutions) that most voters need and want.

Of course this supposed UK ‘listening’ tour by Burnham is , I am sure, only dependent on what ‘Burnham himself wants to listen to and so then respond to’ , that means the chances are Andy Burnham will probably be tone deaf to what we in Scotland actually want and also to what we really need.

That’s because UK PM’s love to tell Scots what they think it is that we need and want (which is, via a majority of Scots , usually the opposite of our real needs and actual wants).

So when he is in Scotland , his (supposed) ‘UK cost of living ‘listening’ tour’, should be , for starters, about him doing something in changing as in reversing the situation where Scotland has some of the highest daily electricity standing charges in Great Britain.

I will not hold my breath on that being altered as a situation, as it seems that we Scots are not allowed to be seen to have something that people in some other UK areas (mainly in the South of England) currently have as a more positive situation (via UK governments).

I think this so called ‘King of the North’ will eventually be deposed , just as so many others in his same position have previously been dumped , as they too were eventually all seen as being useless aka Duds.

As so far all Burnham seems to be , as the new UK PM , is an even worse version of Starmer , one could even say that he is a (bad) continuity Starmer, though he is desperately pretending that he is somehow a change from the previous boss ,though his intended actions do resemble those of the old boss .

Let’s hope that his visit to Scotland is a tiny and so very fleeting part of his UK whistle – stop- tour (which let’s be honest is usually always the case with any UK PM coming up here to Scotland.)

Liz S