"Burnham's Political Fluff: It's Time to Tackle Real Issues Instead of Just Policies!"

TOO often I find myself thinking back to Rachel Reeves’ first Budget and wondering whether it’s within the grasp of man to drink 550 pints of lager.

That is not, in fact, the exact amount of booze needed to vaporise every last brain cell and wipe her calamitous tax hikes from memory.

It was certainly a day to forget as did her best Eeyore impression over the parlous state of public finances.

But she did give MPs something to celebrate when announcing a cut to the duty on draught beer.

“Which means a penny off a pint in the pub!” she roared, to much guffawing from the benches behind her.

I too would have cheered had we all time-travelled back to the 1960s when a pint was 8p.

But these days a Stella in most establishments will set you back at least £5.50, and so you would have to sink at least 550 cold ones before the next one paid for itself.

(I reckon I could handle about 12 in one session before it’s Goodnight Vienna.)

Politicians have this extraordinary knack of hamming up virtually meaningless policies as some great triumph deserving of public gratitude.

And so it has become with recent bag of goodies designed to give people “breathing room” with the cost of living.

He shaved (a great benefit) to save families £45 a year.

have been capped at £2 rather than £3, in a return to the policy first launched under the Tories.

And he has promised to end “subscription traps” for numpties who signed up for free trials and are then shocked when money comes out of their account the next month.

This could save a whole £14, according to Treasury boffins.

These off-the-shelf ideas that are flashy yet inexpensive have given the PM something to parade to voters in his first few weeks.

(If he is still in the market, may I suggest freezing the BBC licence fee — or voiding it altogether — and telling them to make up the losses by cutting eye-watering staff costs.)

While the numbers may be small, the politics are not insignificant for a man eager to ingratiate himself to a sceptical electorate.

But let’s not pretend it’s anything other than peanuts.

And let’s also not pretend that this tinkering is something happening only under . It isn’t.

All recent governments have been guilty of reaching for eye-catching baubles while ignoring the deep structural changes Britain is crying out for.

Which brings me to the October 28 .

Recent Budgets have been tantamount to fiddling while Rome burns.

If our were a clockface, then politicians spend their time arguing whether we should nudge the little hand by a few minutes back and forth.

Spend a few billion here, tax a few billion there.

If the Office for Budget Responsibility is satisfied that the numbers stack up, then it’s job done.

Except that is no way to run a country.

We spend, we tax, and all the while, growth is on the floor and debt is through the roof.

The UK national debt currently stands at £3trillion. That’s 12 zeros, by the way.

This galactic tab means each year to pay off the interest alone on that debt is more than £100billion — more than we’ll spend on defence and prisons in their entirety.

New Chancellor, John Healey, is a smart chap who appreciates the scale of the task.

But this will also take Labour MPs finally making contact with economic reality, especially around welfare which has become nothing short of a national disgrace.

That Britain will spend £400billion each year by the end of this decade on welfare is so obviously nuts.

And still . . . 

is today .

Although we await the detail, these are the sorts of numbers we need to be talking about.

Depressingly, Labour flew out of the traps, decrying such cuts as “fantasy economics”.

But it is them living in Cloud Cuckoo Land if they think current levels are remotely sustainable.

For a generation of MPs bred to hate “austerity” — previously known as spending what you can afford — is there any hope?

Burnham must make his party see sense on debt.

There are many persuasive arguments, including that cutting the crippling interest will actually free up funds currently being burned to spend more on priorities.

Burnham has the political capital and goodwill to be temporarily unpopular, especially if we take him at his word that the will be 2029.

He might get a cheer and a headline for all the sweeties he’s been handing out.

But I’ll be raising a glass if he starts cutting spending, rather than adding to it.

LIKE Keir Starmer, Andy Burnham is a genuine football fan.

The Prime Minister has even renewed his Everton season ticket, which makes you wonder if that could be the real reason behind opening a Number 10 North.

Already he has raised hopes by suggesting he could lift the long-standing ban on drinking in the stands at games.

So I wonder if Mr Burnham could go one step further and end the hated 3pm blackout. The 1960s-era law that bans football matches being shown on telly between 2.45pm and 5.15pm on Saturdays is from another time.

Originally intended to force people to attend matches in person, it is now just by-passed by fans crowding round illegal livestreams at home.

Attending games in person is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive for supporters at the hands of greedy fat cats. And just think of what a boon it would be for hard-up pubs if Saturday games drove people to the boozer.

Landlords I speak to say the was a merciful golden period in an otherwise tough market. Ending the bonkers blackout would be a tap-in, PM.