By Adel Darwish

Andy Burnham’s second Prime Minister’s Questions produced a sentence which may prove more revealing about his premiership than he intended.

Challenged by Kemi Badenoch over defence spending, he insisted that Britain must support its national security, “but it can’t come at the expense of social security”.

It was a very Burnham answer. A question about defence had somehow arrived at housing, homelessness and the pressures facing families. It also raised eyebrows around Westminster. Armies, missiles and intelligence services cannot normally be financed with good intentions about social cohesion.

But there was an intriguing echo from another Labour government, 57 years ago.

Continue reading →