Burnham says wide tax rises for National Care Service are needed. But he’ll need to pitch them with a new manifesto…
“There are commitments in the manifesto that would make it hard to do in this Parliament… [I] will develop a very clear plan, and I will put that plan to the public at a general election.
“That will be that will be where the plan gets tested. And people will then be able to decide.
“And I am prepared to put myself in that position, recognising that it might be difficult or unpopular with some, but that is the way to do it, to get that endorsement and then introduce the system in the next Parliament.”
He eventually said – after repeated questions from Laura Kuenssberg – that his leader’s speech on Tuesday would contain details of the areas in which he will cut spending…
Lucy Powell told Sky News that the Ed Miliband-Russell Brand interview happened in part because the ‘social media age’ had not begun by 2015:
“Look, I mean, he approached the Labour Party, he approached the campaign team, and we’re in very different times now. We weren’t in the social media age at the time – where you could maybe search things up and see allegations about somebody at the time. and as I say, if there was any suggestion at all, we were dealing with someone who was a known sexual predator at the time, then, of course, you know, no one would have done that. But as I say, he was a well known public figure. Lots of people from Hollywood to the BBC to many others gave this person a very, very powerful platform. And we didn’t know at the time, unfortunately. It was a different era.”