Andy Burnham promised urgent action on the cost of living; the heat is now on chancellor John Healey to deliver it | Alfie Stirling
The PM and the new boss at the Treasury face an even trickier task than their predecessors. They need a good plan, and we have one Alfie Stirling is an economist and director of policy at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation As Keir Starmer found, it takes more...
Andy Burnham’s promise of urgent action on the cost of living is now putting pressure on new Treasury chief John Healey to show that Labour can move quickly on household finances, according to an opinion piece published by The Guardian Business.
In the commentary by economist Alfie Stirling, the central argument is that voters tend to judge governments harshly when they believe action came too late or was too weak to stop them becoming poorer. The piece says that this challenge now falls on Burnham and Healey as they face Britain’s worsening affordability squeeze.
Stirling writes that Keir Starmer’s government is already under pressure to demonstrate that its response will be more than rhetoric. The article says the new prime minister is due to set out further measures aimed at giving people “some breathing space,” while the Treasury is being pushed to produce a credible plan for easing financial strain on families.
The commentary points to a stark warning about living standards. It says that before Rachel Reeves took office, the average family was on track to be worse off in 2029 than in 2019. That is described as highly unusual, with the article noting that the normal pattern is for household incomes to rise by about £5,000 over five years, using 2026 prices. It adds that, on modern records, incomes have never before fallen across a whole decade.
The piece frames this as a major test for the new leadership at both Downing Street and the Treasury. It argues that they need not only urgency, but also the right ideas to address affordability problems that are already shaping public frustration. In that sense, the article presents the cost-of-living agenda as one of the defining political issues for the government’s next phase.
This report is based on a monitored public feed and reflects an opinion article in The Guardian Business by Alfie Stirling, identified in the feed as an economist and director of policy at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Source: The Guardian Business - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/21/andy-burnham-john-healey-chancellor-cost-of-living-treasury
