Burnham banishes the ghoul of Keir past
But offers little more than a bag of troubling vibes
A prime minister wins a landslide majority, returning a centre-left party to a rare position – power, but before the political conqueror can even think about replicating their ballot box success, along comes a usurper, who openly shuns the trappings of office to underline their intention that they mean to do things differently.
Andy Burnham’s decision to turn his back on Britain’s famous black door, bearing the numerals 10, may be unorthodox, but it is hardly unprecedented.
In 2010, Julia Gillard, who now resides part-time in London and campaigns for the Labour Party, played this card trick too.
Australia’s first female prime minister did not want to live in The Lodge until she had won power in her own right and until she lost Kevin Rudd’s majority and formed her chaotic minority government,she lived at her home in Altona, Melbourne, and her flat in Canberra.
History might not repeat, but it does rhyme, so the well-established saying goes. In 2010, living out of the prime minister’s official residence only reinforced the sense of political illegitimacy that surrounded Gillard’s own-aborted term.
Burnham may not have such trouble, given his clean conquest over the dreary Keir Starmer, who is Prime Minister in name only, until the Labour Party formally anoints his successor, likely on July 17, when the Manchester Mayor is set to be crowned, uncontested.
But is an unchallenged run such a good thing for Labour’s desperately-needed reboot? The prime minister-in-waiting gave his debut speech from his native Manchester on Monday.
At first blush, it was like a dose of drip hydration therapy, but a closer examination should cause wiser Labour heads some unease.
There was no mistaking the overall message to the British people. Declaring that he would do things differently, Burnham gave a speech in Manchester, where he was Mayor, and said he would create his prime ministerial office, traditionally located at Downing Street, in his home city instead. He said it would be called Number 10 North.
‘The country isn’t where it should be. It is stuck in a rut, and clearly, we can’t go on like this. My generation of politicians - including me - must take responsibility. We haven’t been good enough. But, instead of being honest about that, the parties have continued with politics-as-usual,’ he said.
‘So let me state my clear intention as I put myself forward. True to the motto of this city, I am going to do things differently. I am going to break with the more-of-the-same approach that has got us here.
‘I am going to give Britain the circuit-breaker it needs, by building a more collaborative politics in Westminster.’
Burnham bemoaned political fragmentation and bickering, and in a shot at Starmer and his former chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, vowed to never use the Parliamentary whipping system to rule with fear, whilst warning ‘the political direction I set is not up for negotiation.’
He then set out a wish list for fixing Britain. Taking power from Whitehall bureaucrats and giving it to local governments and mayors (Britain is a central government system, not federal like Australia and the United States).
He spoke of ‘good growth’ in every part of the country, a classic Northern shot at the wealth of London compared to the rest of the country, and a key theme of the Brexit referendum a decade ago, which has resulted in the UK’s never-ending political turmoil.
He backed the current fiscal rules, preventing him from taking out more borrowing, as he pitched a program of reforming utilities, reindustrialising Britain and regenerating towns and cities. This, he said, would be a ten-year project.
His only mention of the perilous geopolitical climate, which has contributed so much to the UK’s falling living standards, loss of manufacturing and inflation, was that the money spent on defence must work harder for taxpayers.
This may be because on Tuesday, Starmer will set out the UK’s pre-NATO defence investment plans, which will confirm drastic underfunding of Britain’s military capabilities. Burnham may consign Starmer’s final acts to the dustbin once he is in, but his silence on the issue is troubling, given one of the party’s most respected figures, John Healey, quit as Defence Secretary over the issue, warning that the current model would leave the UK less safe.
He seemed inclined to view national security through a domestic production lens, saying the UK needed to safeguard steel, defence, energy, food and farming sovereignty. This will set the UK up on a collision course with the European Union, with whom Burnham has said he wants closer investment ties and even to rejoin in his lifetime.
There was more to like that was more concrete, such as encouraging students away from an automatic entry into university, as opposed to vocational jobs and further learning. Hinting at cost-of-living relief, he said he would like to deliver something when he could, perhaps tax cuts and also promised to boost council housing.
Full of optimism, he banished the ghoul of Keir past, who would speak in mournful tones whether the subject was Ukraine, Arsenal football club or a social media ban.
But with not a second spent discussing how to pay to deliver all of this, Burnham’s rewiring the state speech smacked of an excited child on Christmas Eve, writing out their wish list to Santa Claus.
It was reminiscent of another Britain-boosting former mayor who became prime minister — Boris Johnson.
The questions it raised could not be answered, because Burnham did not allow journalists to interrogate his ideas. It should set off alarm bells. Leaders with little practice of handling the national media only create for themselves short and incredibly steep learning curves, just ask the last Liberal leader to contest the Australian election Peter Dutton.
It also betrays an insecure arrogance, and as he is replacing an elected prime minister, this is a dynamic he can ill afford. Failing to road-test how Gillard would perform when really put under the national spotlight, as only prime ministers are, did her no favours.
Burnham is treading a delicate line. He wants and rightly needs to display that he is here to fix the UK and that yesterday’s methods won’t work. But tomorrow’s solutions can only be believed if they are credibly funded and thought-out.
A version of this piece was first published by The Nightly