Andy Burnham will soon find the wrong things are bouncing (Image: Getty)

Burnham made a decent start. After two years of Keir Starmer, it’s refreshing to have a human being running the country again. And so far, he’s played his hand well. Proposals to cut electricity bills, bus fares and pub business rates have been popular. His blokey social media schtick will wear thin, but a sense of humour comes in handy. It’s a clever way to deflect political attacks. But we’re in the summer recess. Westminster wars resume next week and he’s vulnerable to attack.

Burnham’s poll ratings aren’t the only thing to have bounced. So have a heap of economic indicators, and in a completely disastrous way. They’ve all been driven upwards by the Labour policies he’s inherited. He needs to reverse them, fast. Instead, he’s preparing to double down.

Let’s start with unemployment. It’s bouncing horribly. The unemployment rate is now 4.9%, up from 4.1% when Labour took office. Job vacancies have plunged to 707,000, the lowest level outside the pandemic since 2014. The Iran war isn’t helping, but Rachel Reeves’s incomprehensible decision to slap £25billion of extra taxes on jobs has fuelled the fire.

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Angela Rayner’s Employment Rights Bill added more petrol, by deterring companies from taking a chance on young staff. Youth unemployment is soaring and it’s going to get worse. The benefits bill is bouncing too, along with dubious mental health claims. Incredibly, the numbers on Universal Credit with no work requirements has surged by one million in a year.

We spent £30billion on benefits in July, up an inflation-busting 7.2% on the same month last year. Welfare isn’t just bouncing, it’s ballooning. It already swallows every penny of income tax, and it’s getting hungrier.

Something else has bounced. Public sector pay is up 6.1% in a year, while the hard-pressed private sector got just 2.8%. Public sector hiring has bounced too, with 41,000 new staff this year. At the same time, private sector jobs crashed 110,000. The state is gobbling up the private sector. This isn’t sustainable. Labour’s response? Tax the private sector more. Throw the proceeds at the state.

Then there’s another bounce. Net debt is approaching £3trillion, yet we’re on course to borrow another £120billion or so this year. That’s not enough for new Chancellor John Healey, who’s working out how to add another £9 billion a year by the end of this parliament. By 2030, our national debt could bounce to £3.5trillion.

Borrowing costs have bounced too. They were already flying because of our risky fiscal position. Ten-year gilt yields have just bounced above 5%, as the Iran war pushes up oil prices and inflation. That’s above the 4.6% that sank Liz Truss.

So Burnham’s bounce isn’t the only one around. Unemployment, benefits, spending, debt, borrowing and gilt yields are bouncing all over the place. So is the tax burden. Tax took 38% of GDP when Reeves blundered into Number 11, already a post-war high. The IMF forecasts it will bounce to 42.1% by 2030. The revenues will be wasted on benefits and the unproductive state, further crushing growth.

Burnham needs to show some real bounce, and take on his own deluded back benchers. Instead, he plans to appease them by spending more, borrowing more and taxing more. If he does, the UK economy and his poll bounce will both crash. And he’ll be bounced out of Number 10 first chance voters get.