Standing in for PopCon Director, Mark Littlewood, our Head of Campaigns, Andrew Allison, looks back at Andy Burnham's speech to the Labour Party Conference. 

The party conference season is almost at an end, but not before the Conservative Party faithful meet in Birmingham from Sunday to Wednesday. We will, of course, be in Birmingham, in the Leonardo Royal Hotel on Monday at 1:30 pm. We are asking the question, "Do the Conservatives have a serious plan to fix Britain?" Dr David Starkey and Mark Littlewood will be answering it.

(Although you do not need a conference pass to attend our meeting as it is outside the secure zone, space is limited and we do ask that you register to attend.)

That question is even more important after this week's Labour Party Conference. Most of us look back at the political and economic chaos in the 1970s with horror. The Prime Minister looks back at those days with nostalgia and unveiled a decidedly left-wing vision for Britain. If Burnham has his way, we will all be appearing in the remake of Back to the Future! 

He is paving the way for water to come back into public ownership and will give mayors powers to hold water companies to account. He wants to create the "Great British Grid", a publicly owned company within "Great British Energy." Mayors will also be given a stronger role in energy planning. Not nationalisation as we know it, but a half-way house that will certainly pave the way for it. 

He wants to change the voting system to ensure left-wing coalitions are the norm after every general election. That's on top of the legislation currently going through Parliament (it has cleared the Commons and is now with the Lords) to give 16 and 17-year-olds the vote - a thinly-veiled attempt to boost the left-wing vote even further. 

But it was Burnham's plans for our relationship with the EU that have created the most headlines. During the Makerfield by-election campaign, he said that we should concentrate on domestic issues, rather than looking at rejoining the EU. He didn't rule out rejoining the EU in future, but now wasn't the time to debate it.

Just three months later, he is now saying that we need to discuss what sort of a relationship we should have with the EU. He's not saying that we will become full members again, but he's not saying that we won't. We may join the Customs Union, or we may not.

To be honest, I don't think he has a clue (although I think that about almost everything that comes out of his mouth) but what I do know is that he plans to do this without a referendum. The same goes with changing the voting system. The last time there was a referendum on AV in 2011, it was roundly rejected by voters. He really has learned a thing or two about democracy from his chums in Brussels. 

What was absent from his speech (and the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, too) was the merest nod to the next financial crisis that could hit the Treasury in the coming months. We looked at this in our PopConversation with Liam Halligan on Monday evening. (Click HERE to watch it) 

Government gilt yields are currently trading at multi-decade highs and unless the Chancellor gets public spending under control, those yields are going to rise even further. There is a very real danger that John Healey could be writing a similar letter to the one his predecessor Denis Healey wrote 50 years ago to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) requesting a bailout because the markets stop lending to us at reasonable rates. 

The latest Electoral Calculus prediction, published two days ago, has Labour 13 short of an overall majority if a general election were to be held now. All the usual caveats apply to mid-term polls and they cannot be taken seriously, but what can be taken seriously is the electoral maths. That prediction is based on the percentage vote of each party, and with the vote split on the right, Labour could become the largest party in the House of Commons and go on to form a minority administration with the LibDems and/or Greens, with under 27% of the vote. We know that in 2024, Labour secured a 172-seat majority with just 33.7% of the vote. 

If that isn't enough to make us on the right at least be civil to each other and cooperate to stop it, I don't know what will. 

Keep fighting for freedom!