Burnham has said that his first policy will be to end rough sleeping:
“I will soon go through that door behind me and issue my first instruction: to end rough sleeping in our country.”
He pledged in his 2017 mayoral campaign to “end rough sleeping by 2020” via a “radical” plan. In January 2018 he invited BBC Radio Manchester listeners to hold him to account.
MHCLG figures show there are around 360 rough sleepers across the 10 Greater Manchester boroughs in March 2026, up from 335 a year earlier. The 12-month average to March 2026 was 396, almost double the 2022 figure of 204…
That is double the 2022 rate. It has risen every year for the past four years. It is the worst in the city centre. See how this ends…
UPDATE: No10 has now announced £340 million for rough sleeping “funded from within uncommitted MHCLG budgets.”
Robert Jenrick on the Today programme:
“Can you now give a guarantee to your listeners this morning that no BBC presenter in the future will be exposed as a paedophile, as a number have been in the recent past? No, of course you can’t…”