Andy Burnham’s first speech in the House of Commons as Prime Minister has been handed a scathing takedown by David Wooding, branding it a “plodding performance”.
Speaking to GB News, the former Editor at The Sunday Express criticised the Prime Minister’s first address to MPs, arguing that it failed to address the “big issues”.
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Ahead of his first Prime Minister’s Questions this afternoon, Mr Burnham took to the despatch box on Tuesday to deliver his first speech in the House since taking the top job.
The PM paid tribute to his predecessor, Sir Keir Starmer, who had earlier announced he will be stepping down as an MP, before declaring Britain is “not where any of us would wish it to be”.
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He said: “Things are not working as they should. Life is too expensive and too hard for too many. This is why this Government’s first moves were to give businesses and people a little breathing space.”
Offering his analysis of Mr Burnham’s speech, Mr Wooding told GB News that it “seemed to go on for eternity”.
He said: “it was a very plodding performance, I thought. It seemed to go on for an eternity. It did drag on, didn’t it?
“I was almost nodding off halfway through it, but it did go on a long time and it was trying to portray this ‘all hail fellow well met’ northern friendliness, which came across to some extent, but there wasn’t much in there to excite us.”
Mr Wooding further argued the PM failed to cover the “big issues” impacting Britons such as migration and the cost of living.
He argued: “He didn’t cover any of the five or six big issues such as migration, the cost of the cost of living crisis, the hollowed out defences, or any of these big issues where everybody wants to talk about.
“He talked about things like the triple Helix, goodness knows what that meant. And again, we heard a lot about Manchester and we also heard about devolution, which doesn’t even fall in the top ten issues.”
Mr Wooding echoed his previous warnings that devolved powers will “create problems” for the Labour Government.
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Mr Wooding explained: “I did say previously that once the once the box has been opened and devolution has been given to Scotland, it would create problems for Labour. It was a Tony Blair initiative, if you remember.
“And I remember saying to one of the cabinet ministers, what happens when Labour have been in power in Scotland for five or maybe 10 years and people want to change? Where are they going to go? Not to the Conservatives, it’s going to be the SNP.
“So devolution is a good thing to give Scottish people more power and more say, they’ve got a lot more MPs than we have in England per head of population, but to give them their own Government has sort of opened the door to independence in a way.”
Looking ahead to Mr Burnham’s first Budget this autumn, Mr Wooding cautioned that there are only “two choices” for the Prime Minister to choose from.
He told GB News: “He can’t rule out tax rises. There’s only two choices for any Prime Minister now, and that is cuts, austerity or tax rises.
“And of course, Andy Burnham has kicked into the long grass spending cutting the welfare bill, that’s not going to happen in the Budget on October the 28th, so he’s got no other way of getting money.
“And he’s hemmed in by the Labour manifesto of 2022, which says no rise in VAT and National Insurance contributions or income tax.
“So it’ll be stealth taxes, wealth taxes, all sorts of little taxes put together until he calls an election and gives himself the mandate.”
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