Britain’s incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham used his first speech as Labour leader Friday to condemn the economic model established in the 1980s by Margaret Thatcher and promise greater public control of essential services, signaling a shift to the left from outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Burnham, who will formally become prime minister Monday, said that Britain had taken "a series of wrong turns in the 1980s," when political power was centralized and economic power was transferred to private companies.He was unopposed to run as party leader, having been nominated by 379 Members of Parliament to lead it."The country surrendered control of the essentials — housing, water, energy, transport — and left people exposed to higher costs," Burnham said during the July 17 speech in London, according to a transcript of his remarks.WHO IS ANDY BURNHAM? THE TRUMP CRITIC SET TO BECOME THE U.K.'S NEXT PRIME MINISTER ( )He declared that four decades of neoliberal economic policy had "not been kind" to the working-class and industrial communities that traditionally supported Labour and described his ascent as the country’s most significant political turning point in 40 years."The government I lead will confidently lay that path out starting next week," Burnham said.
"That is why this change today is the most significant change moment in our politics for 40 years.Alan Mendoza, executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, said Burnham’s speech offered a clear ideological signal but little detail about how his government would carry it out."With Burnham, there is a lot of light and heat, but not much actual substance," he added.
"We are all still waiting to see what that substance might be." Britons suffer through the ‘Winter of Discontent’ as a man walks past a pile of rubbish in London.Sanitation workers joined other unions across the U.
K.on strike in February 1979. (Graham Morris/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)Mendoza said, "If ...