𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

It was a simple little sentence but one that carried so much ammunition, so much firepower (oh the irony) that it could cost Andy Burnham the next election. “National security cannot come at the cost of social security,” said our Prime Minister in the Commons this week and those ten words revealed what we’ve always suspected about Andy Pandy – that he’s the reincarnation of Jezza Corbyn in a black T-shirt.

Like Corbyn, he doesn’t see the need for a strong military and so doesn’t want to waste money on it. And what we heard this week was the dangerous, socialist essence of him when he made clear that a PM’s most sacred duty – safeguarding the nation and its hardworking people – just isn’t his priority.

No, Andy’s first priority is to mollycoddle the feckless, the work-shy, the sick-note junkies and the people with pretend mental health conditions. Which is why his ‘Man of the People’ pretence is now dead in the water because it’s clear the only people who matter to him are those who shy away from hard graft.

Burnham didn’t just make a mistake this week, he showed us exactly who he is and who’s side he’s on. More importantly, he gave the Tories their next election slogan which they’ll now rightly ram down his throat at every opportunity.

He doesn’t care that our Army has shrunk to its lowest manpower levels since the Napoleonic wars. And because he doesn’t understand foreign politics, warnings from military chiefs that we could be at war with Russia by 2030 just go over his thick head.

His idea of arming-up is to bring back retired servicemen and women up to the age of 65 (those the government hasn’t hounded or prosecuted, presumably) and put them on the front-line AKA Dad’s Army – anything other than pay for our military to be brought back to a respectable fighting force.

Poland currently pays 4.7% of its GDP on defence yet we plead poverty and pay a piddling 2.7% yet somehow, we can still afford to spend 11% of our GDP on welfare. That, of course, is because Burnham wants welfare to be a dependency system in order to “buy” Labour votes. Because who’d vote out a government that not only pays them for not working but doles out free houses and free cars as well?

If you were to write a blueprint on how to most effectively destroy a country, that’s what Burnham’s done this week. Because he’s also given the green light to an utterly destructive uncapped tourist tax that will be presided over by mayors and local authorities.

Not content with brutal NI taxes and minimum wage increases that are bringing the hospitality industry to its knees, he wants to finish the job by allowing a tax that will result in a jobs bloodbath and be the final nail in the coffin for thousands of hotels, pubs and B&Bs. It will also add £120 to the cost of a typical family holiday in Britain.

But what it really means is that Britons will now be taxed every time they sleep anywhere that isn’t in their own home, whether that be for holiday or work. And the amount that can be charged is unlimited.

Does anyone think the buffoons in these local authorities will have the first clue how to properly spend or invest the money raised by these taxes? The fact is, most of them are bankrupt because the people doling out the cash are incompetent amateurs who don’t have a clue how to handle money.

Burnham himself is proof having left the Greater Manchester Combined Authority with a £1.5billion debt – the highest debt level of any combined authority in England.

All tourist taxes are a disaster. Predictions are that if this government reintroduced tax-free shopping for overseas visitors, it would generate a whopping extra £11.5billion for the economy and sustain 153,000 jobs.

How thick are these politicians not to take advantage of that? How thick is Burnham to think that giving local authorities carte blanche to take our money is anything other than punishment on hard working people who need a break.

It’s taken just seven weeks but it’s already clear that Andy Burnham is way more dangerous – and stupid – than Starmer ever was.