ANDY Burnham made a series of lofty, if unspecific, promises in a speech on Monday, billed as an opportunity to set out his policy agenda. The one which has received the most attention is his pledge to oversee the biggest council housebuilding programme "since the post-war period".
The post-war period could mean the decades immediately after the Second World War, when Britain built around five million council homes, or it could refer to the later decades of the 1970s and 1980s, when council housebuilding had already slowed dramatically. Journalists were unable to field questions following the speech, and no further detail has emerged. Burnham also did not acknowledge that housing is a devolved issue.
