The PM is promising to fix our everyday annoyances – and I have a list to get him started | Emma Beddington
In this comment piece, Guardian writer Emma Beddington reflects on Andy Burnham's push to tackle everyday "annoyances" – such as auto-renewed subscriptions, misleading sale prices, and capped bus fares – as a way of building public goodwill, drawing a parallel with New York mayor Zohran Mamdani's popular online campaign against the "annoyance economy". She argues that politicians favour these fixes because they are simple, visual and easy to communicate, even if they distract from tackling harder, slower and more unpopular issues such as climate change or North Sea drilling.
Beddington remains unconvinced by "British pothole politics" so far, but inspired by consumer champion Martin Lewis's call for the government to fix "100 small things that piss people off", she compiles her own wishlist of minor gripes to win her over. These include failed deliveries falsely marked as missed, ignored delivery preferences, shopping websites that reset to the top of the page after clicking back, and firms that auto-enrol customers into marketing unless they opt out.
- Burnham is targeting everyday annoyances like subscriptions, vapes and bus fares.
- Writer compares this to NYC mayor Mamdani's "annoyance economy" campaigns.
- She lists her own gripes, from failed deliveries to sneaky marketing opt-outs.
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Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, has been pushing for government action on the small, everyday frustrations of modern life, from subscriptions that renew without warning to misleading sale prices. The idea is that fixing these minor irritations, unlike big structural problems, is quick, visible and easy for the public to notice and appreciate.
The approach echoes New York mayor Zohran Mamdani's popular campaign against what has been dubbed the "annoyance economy", and has also been championed in Britain by the consumer journalist Martin Lewis, who has called on the government to fix "100 small things that piss people off". Supporters see this as a low-cost way for politicians to build goodwill with voters who feel unheard on the bigger issues.
Critics, however, argue that focusing on minor consumer gripes can act as a distraction from tackling larger, harder and more politically risky problems, such as climate change or energy policy. This tension, between popular but small fixes and unpopular but necessary ones, sits at the heart of the debate over what is sometimes called "pothole politics".