For most people, this is the most difficult decade we have had.
Outside the first 10%, almost everyone else has been withdrawn to some extent from the pandemic, and we are emerging from it, obsessed with many crises that are likely to continue for the next 10 years.
Beneath the cost of living crisis lies a silent mental health crisis and, at the heart of it, a housing crisis that we have been talking about for a decade but have not seen meaningful action by parliament to tackle.
This leads us to another crisis – politics.
Britain is entering the danger zone and people are starting to worry because they do not see the prospect of politics, as usual, pulling us out. Just when we needed a grown government, we got one that did not govern, but campaigned for its own survival by fomenting divisions and starting battles.
This is a strongly dysfunctional government, and the good news that comes from Thursday’s by-elections is that we now have a way to eliminate it. This may be more likely to happen if we also start talking about reforming the deeply dysfunctional British government system.
Today’s crises have been accumulating for a long time.
The poorest parts of our country were not ready for the pandemic. Decades of deregulation in all governments have deprived them of resilience and left people without foundations: in jobs where they cannot go home if they are not well; in homes that are dangerous; in communities without accessible public transport.
This inequality is not accidental. It is the product of a political system that gives too much power in the hands of too little. It is difficult for Britain to perpetuate it.
If our political system was a computer, we would have long ago taken steps to prevent it from being hacked.
The first post, combined with the whip system, took the votes of millions and made them an incredible force for Whitehall’s small elite. Government deputies go through the lobbies, stamping their decisions. Any ability to mitigate the worst of them has long been removed by local authorities.
This over-concentration of power in a London postal code makes it too easy for their own interests to manipulate political decision-making. What else explains the extent to which the political elite is caught up in the mantra that the market decides everything?
In the rare moments when MPs from the back seat have power, such as the recent no-confidence vote, the internal workings of this corrupt system are momentarily revealed. When Nadine Doris warned rebel lawmakers that Tory donors were unhappy and could withdraw money from their constituents, she did not intend to provide a perfect diagnosis of our political discontent – but that is what she did spectacularly.
Some of these donors are hostile to the image of Britain as a fairer and fairer country. Others, as the crisis in Ukraine has revealed, are potentially hostile to Britain. If our political system was a computer, we would have long ago taken steps to prevent it from being hacked.
Britain’s outdated political system will never solve our problems; rather it is the root cause of them.
The time has come to completely readjust Britain – and my party to speak openly and seriously with others who feel the same way.
Given the seriousness of the situation in the country, the next general elections should lead to a change of direction. The risk is that if our political parties continue their usual business, this may not happen. The Tories are masters at doing work for them. However, if other parties are open to a new approach, Thursday’s results show that a change of government is not only achievable, but very likely.
The state opening of the parliament in the House of Lords. The chamber must be replaced by an elected senate of nations and regions. Photo: Ben Stansal / PA
To be clear, I do not support any form of electoral pact. I think that democracy requires people in all constituencies to have a full choice of political parties.
What I am proposing now is cooperation on a political reform agenda. On a mass scale, Labor is moving towards support for PR. If the party as a whole is to accept it, it paves the way for an agreement with other parties for broader reforms: an elected Senate of Nations and Regions to replace the Lords and a maximum transfer of power from Westminster.
We need to make the power flow differently in our land, giving individuals and places more leeway. This idea and the open discussion about it before the elections could resonate among voters as a fairer and more joint way of making politics and create real optimism about the prospects for change. And in turn, it can lay the right foundations for the reforming government the country needs.
There is no way out of the fact that Britain needs social reforms on a scale similar to those needed after World War II. My start for 10 would be: good housing as a human right in UK law and a big program to build townhouses to make it a reality; a higher basic minimum income for all and an end to precarious employment; NHS social care and a significant increase in mental health spending; and the renationalisation of rail transport and the re-regulation of bus services.
Whatever the exact political agenda, the enormity of the change needed cannot be denied and will require consensus and political foundations to sustain it for a generation or more.
When I speak, some always try to mark it as a leadership offer. This is nothing like that. I am doing this because I want Labor to take advantage of the moment. We now have the chance to make Keira Starmer our next prime minister and change the course of the 2020s. Let’s take it.
Andy Burnham is the mayor of Greater Manchester
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