'The interesting thing about Burnham's triple-lock plan isn't the triple lock'

Andy Burnham's conference announcement will produce a debate about the triple lock. That is understandable but it is probably not the most interesting part of what he has proposed. The current triple lock stays for the rest of this Parliament. From April 2030, if Labour wins the next election, the state pension would still rise each year by at least inflation or 2.5%, while "holding its value relative to earnings over time". The savings, he says, would help fund a National Care Service in which pensioners living on the state pension, or only just above it, would no longer see that inc...