Guardian columnist says Keynesian arguments could bolster Burnham's economic narrative

In a column for the Guardian, economics commentator Larry Elliott argues that prime minister Andy Burnham's first party conference speech leaned heavily on nostalgia for the Britain of the 1950s and 1960s, a period when working-class families could expect their living standards to steadily improve.

According to Elliott, the underlying message of Burnham's address was that, given time, he could restore some of that optimism and move the country away from the economic model established after the 1980s.

Elliott writes that much of what Burnham says about that decade is accurate, describing the 1980s as a period of deindustrialisation, asset-stripping and financial deregulation that reshaped modern Britain in ways he characterises as largely negative.

The column goes on to argue that Burnham's broader economic project could be strengthened by directly challenging what Elliott calls common misconceptions in economic debate: the idea that government borrowing is inherently harmful, the notion of a fixed ‘national credit card’ limiting public spending, and the assumption that financial markets cannot be resisted by elected governments. Elliott frames these as Keynesian counterarguments that previous governments have, in his view, already demonstrated in practice.

Elliott is a long-standing Guardian columnist who writes regularly on economics and public policy.