BBC Newsnight’s summary of Andy Burnham’s comments in advance on the Budget:

“Andy Burnham tells Newsnight ‘strong’ and ‘stable’ is the message ahead of his first Budget on Wednesday. So what happened to the radical economic changes he promised?”

What indeed? But the answer is that most of them were promised as something Andy Burnham might do if he wins the next general election, presumably in 2029. Not as something to do now.

That is not enough to win the election. And, more important, it is not enough to improve the public services, union-negotiated wages, benefits, and climate-change measures which the working class needs.

All the indications are that the Budget will be “steady as you go”, and John Healey will be happy just so long as it doesn’t send interest rates on bonds (government IOUs) soaring.

He may slightly increase taxes on the banks, which have been reaping super-fat profits from the sequels of Quantitative Easing.

But it looks like little or nothing for:

• the NHS, where waiting lists are increasing again, and, despite overall budget increases, cuts are multiplying in many areas like the East London Foundation Trust

• universities, where cuts have been piled on cuts since early 2024, following visa curbs on international students, and no end is in sight

• schools

• new council house building

• local government, where the “Fair Funding” will this year impose big cuts in central government funding for London councils, on top of all the cuts they have had since 2010

• benefits, despite the diminished value of Universal Credit and the increased inadequacy of housing benefit due to frozen Local Housing Allowance levels.

The main talk about benefits is of cuts, or advance notice of cuts, in benefits for the disabled.

The government is locked onto a shipwreck course by its “pro-business” dogma. LLI wants the government to ditch that dogma and go for taxing the rich and public ownership and democratic control of high finance.