The Prime Minister has embarked on a nationwide cost of living crisis tour, armed with three-month-accelerated subscription trap bans and rhetoric about giving people ‘room to breathe’. He is delivering these announcements from a resort spa.
No 10 insists the government functions normally while he’s away. This is technically true if your definition of ‘normal’ includes the head of state workshopping solutions to financial desperation while getting a hot stone massage. Reform UK called it bunking off, which is uncharitable — he’s clearly working, just horizontally and with cucumber water.
The subscription ban is real policy, arriving early because apparently the only thing faster than bureaucracy is a PM who needs a PR win before August recess. Burnham will tour the country selling relief to people who can’t afford heating, which is the political equivalent of a weight loss influencer promoting their new book from an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Opposition figures are calling it hypocrisy. This misses the point entirely. It’s not hypocrisy — hypocrisy requires caring about the contradiction. This is just the operating system of modern politics: announce solutions to crises from locations that prove you don’t experience them. The subscription trap ban will save families £47 a year. The optics are already priceless.