Mel Stride: “Labour need to realise that it’s their poor decisions which have stifled growth and made the cost of living worse.”

That is a worrying sign, we need to have a government which is on top of the public finances, not one that is making lots of spending commitments without explaining where the money is going to come from.

I fear that he is somewhat captive to a prime minister who seems to want to go back to the 1970s and huge spending and state intervention.

Labour's tax rises and business bashing have driven the cost of living higher and higher, yet Andy Burnham refuses to rule out yet more tax hikes at the Budget.

Labour’s tax hikes and reckless borrowing stoked inflation, and Andy Burnham has already made billions of pounds of spending commitments without any plan to pay for them.