The room separated faith in the destination from trust in the route: No won decisively, but the highest-rated argument came from a Yes voter who accepted that the plan might be only “an aim rather than something he will complete”. The result was less a rejection of hope than a refusal to treat hope as evidence.
Yes voters defended the ambition itself. The floor’s strongest Yes case called the aims “good aims on the whole”, while another found Burnham’s vision “genuinely encouraging and optimistic”; others urged patience after decades of decay and welcomed power moving out of Westminster.
No voters kept returning to delivery. Their sharpest line was blunt — “Hope is not a policy” — and the most substantial criticism demanded a “concrete, fully costed plan” for houses and industrial revival. The two sides were often answering different questions: Yes asked whether the direction could inspire, while No asked whether the machinery and money existed.
That makes this a governance verdict with a familiar public-finance anxiety at its centre: devolution, council housebuilding, nationalised utilities and regional reindustrialisation were heard as either a route to renewal or another unfunded expansion of the state. Even the less-respected hostility clustered around that distrust, while a quieter No argument reduced the diagnosis to “the devil is in the details”.
Burnham’s plan generated more aspiration than confidence — and, for this chamber, aspiration was not enough.
22 Opinions
I regard his plan, as an aim rather than something he will complete. They are good aims on the whole, it would good to see them achieved. Whatever government we have in power, has a manifesto of aims, which they plan on doing. Doesn't work, because you can guarantee that someone, somewhere will have an objection, and hold the progress up.
Tbh how anyone can judge the new PM is ridiculous. He has set out some aims/policies that he believes achievable, a number of which are ambitious such as ending rough sleeping. Isn't this country meant to strive for such things, when did we become so self centred, so isolationist, I point to brexit, the tories and Farage. Mr Burnham needs time, after decades of decay give him the same time to attempt to fix things.
"Things were better in the past so let's go back there" sounds a bit Manc Marie Antoinette. We can't build houses or reindustrialise because energy costs too much. Devolution and nationalisation don't create growth.
I couldn't believe it when Starmer went and people said it can't get any worse. Wrong again. Clip board warrior im afraid
Nationlised industries never worked in the UK that's how we got here. He can complain about the area that lost out since the 80s but there's no going back. I have no idea who thinks local government is capable of managing devolution/money well we have no working examples. We need to reduce costs and regulations on businesses to enable grow not for big state to try and do it all itself and Inevitably fill and build even more debt
His plan is to destroy our economy and rule over the ashes. It’s not a popular plan.
Well, the climate certainly feels more optimistic and hopeful now as opposed to any other Government. I think the media has alot to play in that though.
Less a sense of hope, and more a sense of despair that this government is accelerating the digging of the hole we are in towards a national grave.
The cardboard cut out Ayatollah Khomeini commanded more presence than this plastic Scouser.
We’ve heard endless 'rebalancing' slogans before, and nothing ever changes. Setting up a No 10 North risks creating another expensive bureaucratic talking shop while local councils go bust. Without a concrete, fully costed plan to deliver housebuilding and industrial revival under current borrowing limits, promising the moon isn't hope, it's just daydreaming.