Andy Burnham receives a round of applause after saying Tories are 'playing from the Trump handbook'

Andy Burnham has likened the government's tactics to something from "the Trump playbook" and he has received praise on social media for doing so.

Speaking about the government's levelling up plans during an appearance on BBC Question Time, the Greater Manchester mayor criticised the Conservatives, claiming they create legal directives for local councils to follow but remove funding needed to follow them.

He told Tory MP Jake Berry that this was something comparable to former US president Donald Trump's tactics.

He said: “Your government’s policy, your policy, is to place the directives on local councils and we’ve worked in good faith to try and implement it.

″But I went back to your government and said to them, ’this isn’t going to work because you refused the hardship fund for people on the lowest incomes and actually there’s now actually inflation in the vehicle market – it’s not going to work.′

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“But this is the point, the dishonesty of this. It’s a national government policy and then you campaign against it.

"What you do is, you impose housing targets on local councils, then you campaign against the green belt level take on local level, your councillors.

“You cut councils in their budget then you campaign against council tax rises when councils have no other choice but to do that.

″You impose this directive on clean air, then you walk about saying ’scrap the clean air [fund].

“The dishonesty of the modern Conservative party is playing from the Trump handbook.”

Burnham received widespread praise on social media for his intervention:

Elsewhere on the show, Burnham spoke about the importance of the justice system and said it needed to be "levelled up" claiming it is weighed against "working people".

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