'Biggest Since the War' Is 70,000 Homes Over a Decade

I didn’t become Prime Minister to just make a few tweaks around the edges. I want to change the way this country works.

For too long, politics became comfortable with the idea that some things just can't be fixed. People sleeping on our streets. Huge inequalities between different parts of the country. Young people unable to afford a home. Communities watching decisions about their future being taken somewhere else, by someone else.

Governments have talked about those things. They've even promised to fix them. But too often, they've reached the same conclusion: it just can't be done.

I don't accept that, and I never have.

That’s why we’ve invested to offer everyone who needs it a route off the streets by Christmas.

It's why we've announced the biggest council housebuilding programme since the Second World War.

It's why we're opening 159 new mental health centres.

It's why we've finally put technical education on par with the academic route.

It's why we're delivering the biggest transfer of power out of Westminster and into local communities in a generation.

And it's why we opened No10 North too.

Not as another government office. But because I believe one thing very strongly: Britain won't be rebuilt from the top down.

You have to put power back in the hands of the people and places that know their communities best - and then put the full weight of government behind them.

I also want to give people a bit of breathing space too.

That's why we've cut tax on electricity bills, capped bus fares at £2, and made subscriptions easier to cancel.

It’s why we've cracked down on fake discounts and cut business rates for pubs, social clubs and music venues.

And it's why we've extended the 16-17 Saver Railcard and introduced free 24/7 bus travel for disabled people.

That is the change we have started. More power for our communities, more support on the cost of living and a long-term plan to rebuild the country.

Each one of those changes is part of the same thing.

Good growth in every postcode.

Reindustrialising Britain.

And making sure wherever you live - and whatever your background - you feel this country has a future for you.

Because, in the end, that's what this is about: bringing back hope.

Source: https://x.com/andyburnham/status/2096172846829408269

After the Second World War, councils put up houses at a pace you could see from the street. Whole rows appeared in a few years. New towns filled empty fields. That is the picture "since the Second World War" is meant to call up. A slogan that large is not a mood. It is a claim about speed and size.

The Prime Minister posted this on 5 September 2026. In a long list — a route off the streets by Christmas, 159 mental health centres, bus fares capped at £2, No10 North — sits the housing line. He called it the biggest council housebuilding programme since the war.

On the same day, LabourList put a number under that slogan. The government will build more than 70,000 social and affordable homes over the next ten years. Spread 70,000 across a decade and you get about 7,000 homes a year. A city the size of Britain needs more than that just to keep up with people who already wait.

That is not a postwar rebuild. It is a slow drip with a wartime label.

LabourList also said the 70,000 is only a tenth of what housing charities such as Shelter and Crisis have been calling for. Read the tweet against that count. The tweet says council houses. The published count mixes social homes and affordable homes. Those are not the same thing. Affordable can mean a cheaper sale, a shared-ownership flat, or a rent below the open market. A council house is a council house. Mixing them lets the wartime slogan cover a smaller, slower, mixed pile. Ten years also means most of the keys will not turn until a later parliament. The announcement lands now. The bricks land later, if they land at all.

A young person who cannot afford a home does not live in a ten-year press release. They live in this year's rent.

Compare the two clocks. After the war, a decade of council building changed the skyline. This decade, on the published count, adds 70,000 homes of mixed types. One filled streets. The other fills a spreadsheet. A 1945 programme was judged by houses you could walk past. A 2026 programme is judged by a ten-year total that still needs a wartime coat to look large. The pattern is scale dressed as history: take a small, slow programme and put 1945's coat on it.

Sources: https://x.com/andyburnham/status/2096172846829408269 + https://labourlist.org/2026/09/burnhams-housing-test-build-more-homes-cap-rents/

The Burnham Report — counter-commentary on what the Prime Minister says. Quotes are verbatim. Every claim is checked against a second source before publication.