ANDY Burnham has admitted his first Budget was not as radical as he wanted.
The PM had promised Brits sweeping change — but conceded he and Chancellor John Healey had been unable to deliver bold measures he had hoped for.
Asked if Wednesday’s Budget was radical enough, Mr Burnham told ITV: “The room for manoeuvre wasn’t what I would have hoped it to be.”
He added: “In the times that we’re currently in, I feel that the volatility of things means you just can’t necessarily deliver the Budget that, in an ideal world, you would want to deliver.”
Mr Burnham entered No10 in July promising to reverse “four decades of neoliberalism” and radically transform Britain.
His Chancellor raised taxes on savers and landlords by £4.3billion, while failing to trim Britain’s ballooning welfare bill. But he still left some left-wing allies deeply underwhelmed.
Mainstream, the soft-Left group which helped propel him to power, blasted the package for its “missed opportunities”, warning: “People can’t afford to simply wait till the next election for change.”
The PM defended his Chancellor’s plans, pointing to a one-off £100 energy payment for 20million households and moves to make banks repay support received during the financial crisis.
But the handout comes as energy bills are forecast to soar by as much as £400 in January.
And Mr Healey also ducked cuts to Britain’s ballooning welfare bill, which is expected to hit a staggering £431billion by 2032.
The Chancellor sparked fresh confusion on Thursday by suggesting benefits spending would fall before the next election – only for No10 to insist no deadline had been set.
Defence Secretary Wes Streeting yesterday predicted a new Labour rebellion if benefits spending was not cut.
He said: “Candidly, we saw when we came in after the general election there was an attempt to bring the welfare bill down by putting an arbitrary figure on it.
“And when the MPs who want to see the welfare bill coming down saw the detail and who was impacted, people said, ‘Hang on a minute, these cuts are falling on the wrong people’.”