The week to 4 October 2026

This week's pieces

• Burnham recommits to net zero. Is there a plan behind the pledge?

  Local ownership is the right approach, and the £30m is billed as the first payment on a £1bn programme. The Rosebank and Jackdaw decisions and the Budget will show whether the pledge has a plan behind it.

  Too early to judge
• Is Burnham right to keep the door open to rejoining the EU?

  Burnham is right that the question cannot wait for the next scheduled review around 2031, but four unranked options and private polling add uncertainty without a plan.

  Partly right
• Britain signed up to the G7 diesel release. What can it put in?

  Britain was not shut out. It joined calls with EU commissioners and governments, and signed the G7's 100 million barrel release. But it holds no public oil stocks, so its share must come from companies' tanks.

  Mostly right

Also happened

1. Burnham confirmed the pension triple lock stays unchanged for this parliament but will be altered from April 2030, with the savings going towards a new National Care Service. Source. It passed all three tests, and I'd have liked to run it. A saving that starts in 2030 cannot pay for anything before then. But we publish two or three pieces a week, and the net zero and EU stories had more to argue about.
2. Around 700 prisoners began leaving jails in England and Wales on Thursday under the early release scheme. Treasury minister James Murray could not guarantee the safety of domestic abuse survivors. Source. It passed the tests too. The decision is real and the alternatives are concrete, but there were only so many slots in a week dominated by the conference. It will come back, because the releases run in stages over the next year.
3. In his conference speech on 29 September, Burnham said the government will repeal the ban on public ownership of water companies. It is part of a wider plan for public control of utilities. Source. This passed all three tests and was the hardest to leave out. Repealing a ban is a long way from buying a water company, and the cost of doing that is the real story. I'd rather wait until a figure exists than guess at one.
4. Burnham announced a National Commission on Electoral Reform, open to all parties, and pledged that Labour's next manifesto will commit to changing the voting system. Source. Passed the tests, lost on timing. A commission that has only just been announced gives me little to judge beyond the pledge itself, and the pledge will be better judged when the commission reports.

Updates

• Burnham's conference speech on 29 September announced Great British Grid, a publicly owned company within Great British Energy, and the repeal of the ban on public ownership of water companies. Both go further than the £30m for community energy that the net zero piece judged.
• No date for the Rosebank and Jackdaw decisions has been confirmed since the piece went up. The Budget on 28 October remains the next fixed point for judging whether the pledge has a plan behind it.