Unlike a few others, I was prepared to give Andy Burnham the benefit of the doubt – and hold back on any trenchant criticism of him until he actually did something wrong. Well, just three weeks into his premiership that moment has finally arrived.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister announced that councils will get new powers to block new betting shops, bracketing them together with vape shops, ‘dodgy businesses’ and ‘rogue operators’. ‘The rise of vape shops, betting shops and rogue operators have replaced the shops, services and community spaces that people are crying out for’ he declared.

Burnham’s pearl-clutching disdain of betting shops shows how alienated Labour is still from its old working-class roots, in spite of its change of leader

Well, I don’t know much about vape shops as I don’t ‘vape’– but I do know about betting shops having spent many happy hours in them watching horse-racing action from all over the country and beyond. And quite frankly, I find Burnham’s view of them to be insulting.

He is not only quite wrong to claim that there is something undesirable about betting shops, he is wrong to imply that they are not, nor could they ever be, ‘community spaces’.  Our old Tote shop in a western suburb of Oxford was a hub of our community, for the young and old alike. The manageress Dilly – a lovely lady – regularly organised coach trips to the races for the punters. I remember particularly enjoyable visits to Bath and Salisbury. We would have a picnic by the side of the coach on arrival before enjoying the race action. There was great camaraderie. I even won a little Tote radio in a competition on one of the trips. Is this the sort of activity that Andy Burnham regards as ‘dodgy’?

In the shop itself, the old boys would sit at the table, poring over the Racing Post or their racing pull-outs, chatting to each other about their selections – and why such and such a jockey should have won on a certain horse yesterday and why this one of Mick Channon’s looked a good thing in the 5.30 at Goodwood. It was all great fun. Cups of tea or coffee and biscuits were always available.

In the pre-smart phone age, betting shops were the only places you could watch the action from non-televised race meetings. Many is the time I’d pop down to my local shop in the summer evenings to see how the Sir Mark Prescott horses I had backed in an each-way patent got on. Of course during the football season there was also the joy of the fixed odds ‘One from each section’ coupons too.

My Dad and I would share a coupon and it was always a good start to the week when there was something to collect on the Monday.

Nowadays most bet online but there’s still nothing that beats the thrill of collecting cash won on a cash bet at the bookies. But it’s a thrill that Andy Burnham (or should that be Oliver Cromwell?) seems to want to deny us. The irony is that betting shops are already sadly disappearing from our High Streets. Less than two weeks ago Betfred – one of our leading chains – announced they were to close 132 stores, with the loss of over 600 jobs. Paddy Power and William Hill have also announced  cloures.

If anything, the government – if they genuinely cared about ‘saving the High Street’ and ‘community spaces’ in our towns and cities – would be going the other way. They would be trying to help preserve betting shops as part of our national cultural heritage, and because they are places where you can still meet other people and have a friendly chat.

Instead, they are putting the boot into the bookies still further. Burnham’s pearl-clutching disdain of betting shops shows how alienated Labour is still from its old working-class roots, in spite of its change of leader. Yes, there is such a thing as problem gambling, but most people who go into their local William Hill or Ladbrokes do so because they like a little harmless, life-enhancing flutter. Try going to one next Grand National day and you’ll see what I mean.

Now it seems that the puritanical kill-joys (who one suspects would like to see horse-racing go the way of greyhound racing in Wales and Scotland and be banned altogether) want the innocent pleasure of going to the betting shop taken away from us as well. How utterly depressing, Mr Burnham.