Responding to Prime Minister Burnham’s Labour Party conference speech, Green Party Leader Zack Polanski said:

“Unlike his predecessor, we have a PM who talks like he gets it. But sadly like his predecessor he isn’t prepared to break from the powerful and wealthy interests that have created an inequality, affordability and a climate crisis. Hope is not just a slogan, it needs to mean real change. The speech today had no wealth taxes, no rent controls, no water nationalisation and a strong hint of more North Sea drilling.

“There is a gap between what the Prime Minister says, and what he’ll actually do

“Thames Water has utterly failed, it has long passed its notice period and more talk about better regulation is just tinkering. Public control is not the same as the public ownership we desperately need.

“The Prime Minister rightly talks about the scandal of the leaseholder system but Labour had pledged to end it already and backed down. Will the Prime Minister now commit to ending it once and for all, or will his proposed reforms just be more fiddling around the edges?

“We’ve had a chancellor spending the week praising Rachel Reeves and talking like George Osborne on welfare cuts. We’ve had a foreign secretary who’s spent the week saying how badly wrong Labour got it on Gaza while locking pensioners up for saying so.

“It is disappointing that we have a country ready to break from the last 40 years, a Labour government with the majority to do it, and yet what we see are more half measures, reannouncements and tinkering.

“Some of the pledges are steps in the direction the Greens have been calling for, but it is clear that Labour needs the Greens to keep them in check everyday to push them towards the real transformation this country needs.”