Chris Mason: The Budget is imminent as tricky things pile up for Burnham
There are several issues on the horizon for the prime minister This feels like the week where the rubber hits the road for the Prime Minister's new government. It is now 100 days since Andy Burnham arrived in Downing Street from Buckingham Palace and began to assemble his cabinet. Three months later, Labour MPs are more chipper, the party's poll ratings have notched up and the tone and style of government feels very different from when Sir Keir Starmer was in charge. Coming next, though, there are a whole series of crunchy decisions and trade offs – economic and political – some of which are inevitable and some of which Burnham has decided to lean into. You would be forgiven for only just clocking there is a Budget this week. But woe betide suggesting to anyone involved in assembling this Budget that it is a steady-as-she-goes, nothing-to-see-here thing. Every Budget is a big deal, goes…
