Burnham to tour Britain as blueprint emerges for rejoining single market

Prime Minister Andy Burnham will embark on a tour of Britain focused on the cost of living, the Guardian and BBC report. The tour is described as an effort to reconnect the government with the public.

The Independent reports that Burnham has been handed a post-Brexit plan that could see Britain rejoin the EU single market, while the Express frames the same development as a blueprint to reverse Brexit through a proposed European Confederation. The Express also describes Ed Miliband's energy policy as a power grab unleashed by the Prime Minister.

The framing tells the story. One outlet's reconnection tour is another's prelude to reversing the referendum. The single market question has returned not as a fringe proposal but as a document the Prime Minister now holds. Whether it was requested or merely received remains unstated.

The tour itself is a classic prime ministerial move after a difficult start - get out of Westminster, be seen listening, reset the narrative. The single market blueprint arriving at the same moment makes the listening tour a rather different proposition. If the government is weighing that question, the tour isn't only about listening but about reading the room on the biggest question British politics has faced this century.

Watch whether Burnham addresses the single market question on the tour, and whether the blueprint becomes a policy or remains a document nobody quite remembers commissioning.