Click the video above to watch Labour MP Rosena Allin-Khan squirm through a basic yes-or-no question on Newsnight last night: “Should public spending come down?” It’s a question with such an obvious answer that it should barely be worth asking, but Labour MPs find it impossible. Unless they happen to have just lost a high profile job and don’t care anymore…
Former Treasury minister and adviser to Burnham in the Makerfield campaign Lord Jim O’Neill, who has turned down a role in his government, said Burnham’s first statement Commons was:
“The last thing investors wanted to hear… gilt yields have risen by a 0.25% in one day, which is a lot. We’ve not had that since Liz Truss days… If your country is under the focus of ‘can they come up with a sensible fiscal strategy’ on a day when the markets think ‘well no, you’re not showing any sign of it’ you’re going to have a tough day…if it stays like this your mortgage rate is going up.”