Can Andy Burnham fix Britain’s essential services and debt problem?

Nowadays, prime ministers and even presidents cower before the mighty bond markets. These have the ability – in democracies, at least – to have leaders ejected from office via the ballot box, as even US President Donald Trump appears to acknowledge.However, it is not enough to simply offer dismissive gestures towards the bond markets, as some political leaders have discovered to their cost. It is much more important to ask why it is that bond markets have become so powerful.It is refreshing in this regard that Andy Burnham, the newly elected member of parliament for Makerfield in northern England and the man widely expected to become Britain’s next prime minister, is in effect doing just that. He appears to have recognised that financial systems – more specifically, mechanisms for transferring savings into investment in his own county and in other market economies – could be in need of a radical overhaul.