This piece by Richie Venton, SSP national trade union organiser, was originally published in a slightly altered form in the National (13/10/2026)
There’s an old, slightly jaundiced joke which encapsulates the widespread, growing public distrust of politicians: “How can you tell when a politician is lying? When his lips move!”
Can we trust politicians?
I don’t believe everyone in politics is a born-again liar. Thousands of selfless people dedicate themselves to struggles for a better society, sacrificing time, money, sometimes their career prospects.
But far too many mainstream politicians indulge in lies and deceit to maintain power and privileges.
A whole industry has been created of spin doctors; hired liars, whose trade is using words to fool most of the people most of the time.
Socialists rely on the truth
Ultimately, it’s the class interests they represent which dictates whether a politician is honest.
If you’re a socialist out to help the working-class majority gain power, it pays to expose the truth.
In contrast, if a politician is in hock to the military-industrial complex, fossil fuel capitalists, international bankers, but pretends to be on the side of working-class people, they’re bound to trade in half-truths and deceit.
History is littered with broken promises from such politicians, which drives hordes of people to abstain in elections, or fall for the false claims of being anti-establishment, against the corrupt status quo, made by extremely corrupt establishment figures on the far right – such as Reform UK, of £72-million-from-billionaires infamy.
What about Andy Burnham?
So, what about Andy Burnham, hailed as the evangel of ‘Hope Again’, to use Labour’s recent logo?
Many, appalled by Starmer’s government, latched onto Burnham’s leftish-sounding language at Labour’s conference.
To avoid getting fooled again, let us examine some of what he said – and what he did not say – always bearing in mind the material class interests that will shape outcomes.
“Public control” is NOT public ownership!
I’ve heard people claim he called for public ownership, including of water and other utilities. He absolutely did not!
Burnham spoke of “greater public control”, including with reference to England’s rip-off, privatised, sewage-filled water industry. He didn’t even mention nationalisation of the most notorious profiteering polluter, Thames Water, despite overwhelming popular support for this.
He merely promised “more public control”, and England’s mayors “holding them to account”.
What does that even mean? A varnished version of Ofwat, which in theory already plays that role? Look at the results!
I’ll stick to the old socialist adage that “you can’t control what you don’t own”.
Manchesterism
Very significantly, but never highlighted in media reports, he added “where private companies serve the public interest, we will support them.”
That one sentence encapsulates Burnham’s whole approach; the essence of his so-called ‘Manchesterism’.
Rather than public ownership and public investment for public need, he relies on inducements to profit-driven private capitalist firms and overseas states.
Just as he did as Mayor of Greater Manchester, including special deals and right-of-first-refusal on land ownership being made with the dictatorial Abu Dhabi government, owners of the scandal-hit, industrial-scale cheats, Manchester City… and of vast tracts of the city of Manchester itself.
Demand cancellation of PFI contracts
In government, Blair and Brown called this ‘Public Private Partnership’. Part of the “40 years of neo-liberalism” which Burnham denounces in speeches, while skipping over the inconvenient fact he was Health Minister in that government, implementing the ruinous Private Finance Initiative (PFI) schemes in our hospitals (and schools), never once criticising his own (neo-liberal) actions.
These profit-driven PFI schemes drained Scotland of £1.25 billion last year – with another £27bn still owed by the Scottish public to the corporate loan sharks.
I never heard Burnham hint he would cancel PFI contracts, in his alleged turn away from ’40 years of neoliberalism’, did you?
He has merely added new, pretty embroidery to the same neo-liberal model, totally bereft of democratic public ownership and control.
For a People’s Energy Service
Some imagine he took steps towards public ownership of energy; he absolutely did not!
His promised ‘GB Grid’ is not even new state investment, but a component part of the pre-existing GB Energy – which has done barely anything to create green jobs or tackle private energy profiteering. And GB Grid would run in competition with the privately-owned National Grid.
The latter’s failure to invest and modernise the grid means Scotland’s copious supplies of wind-power energy cannot be properly distributed to where it’s needed.
Full-blown democratic public ownership of all energy production and distribution is required to rapidly transition to clean energy production – under the leadership and guidance of the real experts, energy workers, in a system of workers’ control – to create green jobs and slash household bills.
None of that is on offer from Burnham’s Labour; we instead face a further hike in energy bills in January.
Jackdaw and Rosebank
Nor should we be surprised when Burnham gives the go-ahead to production in one or both of Rosebank and Jackdaw, despite Rosebank threatening to produce carbon emissions exceeding the combined total from the 28 poorest countries on Earth.
He calls it “being pragmatic about the North Sea.” Not a word about mass state investment, under public ownership with workers’ control, in a green industrial revolution which research proves could create at least 70,000 new green energy jobs in Scotland alone.
Prostration before capitalists
Burnham prostates himself at the feet of the fossil fuel capitalists. And at the feet of the military-industrial complex, who add vastly to the climate catastrophe through (grotesquely profitable) wars… and have been gifted the warmongering John Healey as Labour’s chancellor.
Robbing pensioners
Burnham grabbed headlines by claiming to plan a future National Care Service, free at the point of use.
Stripped of the rhetoric, what he proposes only really matches what already exists in Scotland – personal care for the elderly.
It fails to tackle the core problem of care homes being overwhelmingly privately owned, profit-driven, often registered in offshore tax havens, frequently unfit for purpose.
Scandalously, Labour plans to pay for this wholly inadequate scheme in England by dismantling the triple lock on state pensions, already among the worst in Europe, with two million pensioners in poverty.
No word of a Wealth Tax!
They will hammer pensioners rather than tax the grotesque wealth of the richest fifty UK families, who own more than half the population, 34 million people. Imagine what a 5% wealth tax on even just those fifty families could produce, as advocated by the SSP.
National Care Service
The SSP’s longstanding campaign for a genuine National Care Service – publicly owned, funded by taxation of the rich, free at the point of use, with well-trained, well-paid staff making it fit for the 21st century – stands out in bright colours compared to the deceitful language of Burnham espousing something that falls drastically short of that.
Next comes the brutal Budget realities!
In a neat division of labour, the starker realities people face was conveyed in the less publicised speech by his handpicked chancellor, former Minister for Defence/War under Starmer, John Healey.
Capitalism’s chief journal, the Financial Times, succinctly called it “a stern lecture on the need for fiscal discipline.”
He emphasised, “policies will be built on a rock of fiscal discipline” – an exact repeat of the doom-laden strictures of his predecessor, Rachel Reeves.
Central to Healey’s speech was a softening up of public opinion for an assault on the benefits of the sick, disabled and long-term unemployed, with young people particularly in his gunsights as he prepares Labour’s 28 October budget.
Cutting welfare to fund warfare
With all the moral tone of a priest concerned for our souls, Healey claimed, “we have a moral duty to help young people get off benefits and into work”, telling us sinners, “it’s not progressive to allow a bigger and bigger benefits bill in a system which offers comfort.” Comfort, on benefits?!
Such claims of moral righteousness never apply to expenditure on warfare, as opposed to welfare.
Healey the warmonger
Healey resigned when Starmer wouldn’t grant him enough extra dosh for warfare. Now, as chancellor, he bluntly intones that Labour must cut
welfare spending to boost investment in weapons and profits for the military-industrial complex, which Labour euphemistically call ‘defence’.
Burnham’s Labour increasingly talk of endless expenditure on war in Ukraine and openly grant use of British bases for Trump’s imperialist attacks on Iran.
Capitalist Labour tied to warfare and pollution
Labour’s undying adherence to the British state, fossil capitalists, military-industrial complex, and the capitalist class in general, means that whilst Burnham will undoubtedly package Labour’s measures more attractively than Starmer did, the same fundamental class interests will be adhered to.
Warfare before welfare. Profits before public provision. Partnerships with profiteering private capitalists and overseas state investors before democratic public ownership for the common good. ‘Fiscal discipline’ before investment in public services fit for the 21st century.
We need honest, working-class socialism instead
No, regardless of the rhetoric, Burnham (and Healey) do not offer a New Jerusalem, but continued capitalist inequality, exploitation, environmental desecration and perpetual wars.
Capitalist Labour remains capitalist Labour.
We cannot believe their pretty words. By your deeds ye shall be known, Mr Burnham!
We need honest, working-class socialism instead.
