Him up North: Andy Burnham shouldn't expect a honeymoon period in Number 10

If Andy Burnham hopes to enjoy a honeymoon period after entering Downing Street, then he would do well to avoid the mistakes of his predecessor. Keir Starmer was swept to victory just over two years ago on a vague message of ‘change’ after 14 years of Tory rule and managed to extinguish any flickering sense of optimism within two months of taking office. In what is now widely regarded as one of the early mistakes of his premiership, Starmer invited journalists to the Number 10’s rose garden in the summer sunshine of late August and told them: “Things are worse than we ever imagined.” 

Starmer’s speech sought to temper expectations, that old political adage of under-promise and over-deliver, but instead presaged a prolonged period of doom and gloom. Chancellor Rachel Reeves had already done much of the heavy lifting in that respect, revealing the presence of a £22bn “black hole” in the public finances and – just weeks on from the election – scrapping winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners. Reflecting on those early days in power during a recent interview, Starmer’s former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney (who resigned over his part in the fateful decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as US ambassador) said the party had been underprepared for government and should have been “way more optimistic” in its messaging.  

Burnham, who was sworn in as a Labour MP less than a month ago and elected unopposed as the party’s leader just last week, now has three years in Downing Street to put Labour back on an even keel and avoid what for his party would be the nightmare scenario – being succeeded as prime minister by Nigel Farage. That’s assuming the Reform leader beats Count Binface in the upcoming Clacton by-election, of course. 

There are some achievements on which to build – ironically one of Starmer’s early slogans in Downing Street was about “fixing the foundations” – including an economy which is growing third fastest in the G7 behind the US and Canada and slowly improving public services, with the NHS in England making albeit limited progress in cutting waiting times, although more than six million patients were waiting for treatment as of May. And while it took a Labour government to scrap the two-child benefit cap, lifting an estimated 450,000 children out of poverty in the process, much of its time has been spent fixing its own mistakes, U-turning on winter fuel payments, for example, or sacking Mandelson when the full extent of his relationship with the late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein became known.     

Burnham appears to have identified the need to inject some much-needed positivity into British politics. Giving his first major speech since winning the Makerfield by-election, the former Manchester mayor told an audience at the city’s People’s History Museum: “People need hope.” 
“Imagine good growth in every postcode and hope in every heart,” he told supporters as he set out his vision of a Britain where power rests closer to the people, with a new “Number 10 North” in his adopted city and devolved decision making across the country. Burnham pledged to create a “more streamlined state” with a “laser-like focus on growth and regeneration”. 
“It will be about offering new opportunities to extend devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland by taking power deeper down,” he said. “The people of Dundee and Bangor feel just as distant from Holyrood and the Senedd as they do from Westminster.”

Burnham, who stood twice before to be Labour leader, coming a distant fourth to Ed Miliband in 2010 and runner-up to Jeremy Corbyn in 2015, calls his ideology “Manchester-ism”, a rejection of leaving everything to “the market” and of the Thatcherite trickle-down economics which have seen wealth inequality widen to levels more in line with the United States than our nearest European neighbours. But the politician who famously complained about Britain being “in hock to the bond markets” has been careful not to spook the creditors of UK Plc, promising to abide by the Treasury’s fiscal rules and pledging to prioritise economic growth just as his predecessor sought to do. 

And yet while Burnham has committed himself to governing in line with Labour’s 2024 manifesto, he is far from the continuity candidate. If his rhetoric is to be believed, the new prime minister will cast off the pallid managerialism of his predecessor for something altogether more radical, an overhaul of a Westminster system which has centralised power, leaving voters and local communities to feel increasingly impotent in the face of challenges such as the cost of living, housing and the looming crisis of young people struggling to find opportunities and being left to feel like they have no future. It may not be the populism of Reform UK but there’s a nostalgia in Burnham’s politics, a desire to meet the challenges of tomorrow with solutions from the past – building more council houses, putting vocational training on an equal footing with university education, and nationalising sectors such as water, energy and transport. 

After being blocked from standing in the Gorton and Denton by-election where Labour fell to third behind the Greens and Reform, Burnham has enjoyed an unobstructed route to power against a cratering in his predecessor’s popularity and authority as leader. If the Mandelson scandal mortally wounded Starmer and the results of May’s elections in England, Scotland and Wales speeded his demise, then the resignation of defence secretary John Healey was the final nail in the PM’s coffin. Previously a loyal lieutenant, Healey quit in early June amid a row over funding for the armed services, effectively ending Starmer’s hopes of clinging to power. A week later, Burnham won the Makerfield by-election with a majority of more than 9,000. By the middle of last week and in the absence of any challengers, he had received the backing of 349 Labour MPs. 

Burnham’s ascent has helped distract from the failure of Labour’s campaign at May’s Holyrood elections where Anas Sarwar talked of entering Bute House and ended up tied for second with Reform, seeing his number of MSPs reduced in the process. Elsewhere in the pages of this magazine, former Labour first minister Jack McConnell calls on the new PM to scrap the role of Scottish secretary, a decision likely to be popular with the MSPs and Scottish MPs still furious over Douglas Alexander’s handling of the election campaign. 

But there are questions for Sarwar too over what his party actually stands for and how it can play a constructive role in holding the SNP to account in the Scottish Parliament. Despite growing unhappiness among voters over the Nationalists’ record in government and the party’s stewardship of public services, many continue to see it as the least worst option, particularly when viewed alongside Labour under Starmer. 

The incoming prime minister has already ruled out the prospect of another independence referendum, telling a meeting of Scottish Labour MPs he is unwilling to grant the section 30 order required to allow Holyrood to legislate for a second vote on Scotland’s constitutional future. Indeed, Burnham’s inclusion of Scotland in his discussion of “rewiring Britain” has – perhaps unsurprisingly – upset the SNP. Never one to pass up an opportunity for grievance mongering, First Minister John Swinney accused Burnham of showing a “lack of knowledge” about Scotland.

“Rather than sending us polemics from wherever Andy Burnham has decided to send us polemics from, he should engage constructively and also follow through on all of his rhetoric about making sure power is devolved out of Whitehall to different parts of the United Kingdom,” the SNP leader said.

But whether Swinney likes it or not, Scottish voters feel just as disenfranchised as their counterparts south of the border, something that is borne out by the fact just 53 per cent of the electorate bothered to vote in May’s election. Under the SNP, power has become ever more centralised while the ability of local authorities to take decisions in their own back yard has been whittled away to almost nothing. 

Perhaps more so than at any point in its recent history, the UK faces something approaching an existential crisis. A decade on from the decision to leave the EU, the lives of most people have not improved. Many have got worse. In Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, nationalist governments hold power amid growing unhappiness with Westminster. The death of former Conservative minister Ann Widdecombe, an incident now being investigated by counter-terrorism officers, has once again raised the sorts of questions about the safety of our politicians which followed the murders of Jo Cox and David Amess. And last week, in a further sign of rising tensions, police made 12 arrests across England as part of an investigation into what they called an “extreme right-wing” terror threat to an Islamic event attended by 15,000 people. 

There is no lack of problems waiting for the new prime minister on his first day in the job. Burnham has been quick to identify Britain’s problems – sluggish growth, unaffordable housing, limited opportunities for young people, and a political system which many people feel no longer works for them. But diagnosing the issue is the easy part – finding solutions will be much more difficult.