In the first episode of Armando Iannucci’s political satire The Thick of It, the hapless minister Hugh Abbot is in the back of a taxi, frantically brainstorming for an on-the-hoof policy he can announce to the assembled national press. No one can possibly object to it,” says the addled junior adviser Ollie Reeder. In the past week Andy Burnham has vowed to clamp down on social pariahs blaring out TikTok videos on public transport, outlaw “rip-off” private car park fines and – on Thursday – fill in potholes in 7,000 miles of England’s roads.
Before that, as part of the focus on “everyday fixes”, the prime minister announced a plan to remove VAT from electricity bills, a £2 cap on single bus fares across England and take action on “auto-renew” subscriptions. There’s also promises to crack down on pricey branded school uniforms, ban specious discounts, limit vape and betting shops and stop airlines charging families to sit together on planes. At this rate all minor annoyances in the UK will be eradicated by Christmas.
The idea is simple, says one policy adviser. Instead, the everyday fixes were a central policy strategy from Burnham’s first day in office. One government source said: “There is a very intentional drumbeat of those because they do make a difference, but also it’s constantly showing people that we understand where those frustrations and low-level pressures are.” Ideas are “kicked around” between the cost of living taskforce in the Cabinet Office and the policy unit in No 10, with all departments encouraged to feed in.
The small policy announcements have been, one delighted adviser said, a roaring success. Another source said: “Some people are very snotty about it, but in a world where it’s really hard for a government to cut through, this is working. You put some ideas through the grid and you often don’t know if they’re going to fly.
But when you see one go gangbusters, it’s kind of like Christmas morning.” One single fact policy idea dominated the news cycle for an entire day. Another generated tens of thousands of posts on X. Burnham’s faintly hokey video on antisocial phone use garnered 2m views.
The small-fix policies have not been appreciated by everyone. Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick said the UK was “going down the pan and our prime minister is faffing around tweaking parking tickets” – despite trying to implement the policy himself when he was a Conservative minister. The former Olympian Sharron Davies said: “As Paris burns our prime minister has stopped people playing loud music on buses & trains,” leading some to question whether she expected Burnham to invade the French capital.
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