Burnham is told axing pension triple lock would be ‘electoral suicide’ as he prepares to address Labour conference – UK politics live

Union leader says getting rid of triple lock not ‘the right thing’ as the PM prepares to lay out his ‘hope comes from honesty’ vision in Liverpool this afternoonBurnham promises to roll back privatisation with government-backed grid planGood morning. The day after Donald Trump won his first US presidential election in 2016, Ed Miliband (at that point just an ex Labour leader) went on the World at One and gave an astute assessment of the lessons to be learnt from Trump by progressives. Trump was offering “big solutions”, he said – a theory he later fleshed out in a book called “Go Big”. Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader at the time, and he certainly offered voters a “Go Big” vision – but for various reasons he could not persuade the electorate. But today a more mainstream Labour leader is also going to embrace “Go Big”.According to the Labour party’s overnight briefing, Andy Burnham is going to use his first conference speech as leader to set out what he will describe as “a more serious prospectus for Britain than people have been offered in a generation”.We can’t carry on as we are. Politics-as-usual has taken Britain backwards. More of the same isn’t good enough and isn’t going to get us where we need to be.Hope comes from honesty and from saying the things politicians usually avoid. Continue reading...