Archive for August, 2026

Smiling Andy has iron teeth

26/08/2026, 10:24:20 PM

A Blairite, a Brownite and an Corbynite walk into a pub. “Hi Andy, what are you having,” says the barman. Its a joke so lame it staggers in on calipers. The Prime Minister’s party critics have long sought to portray Andy Burnham as inherently insubstantial. A chameleon wearing flip-flops.

But Burnham has now had the last laugh. Being fleet of foot (sans flip-flops), has certainly worked out for him in the end. Essentially, he’s a classic old-right-wing Labour pragmatist. Economically a bit left-wing, socially a bit right-wing is a pretty decent centre-of-gravity for the British public.

Meanwhile the post-Blair Blairites who took the brunt of his Corleonean reshuffle are now a depleted lot. Memorably it is they, not Burnham, who went to the pub. None of them has The Master’s chutzpah or his feel for politics and it seems few of them will reemerge as significant players any time soon.

It’s worth noting Burnham’s sheer ruthlessness when the top job was finally his. He has never before had a reputation for doing the rough stuff. Niceness is Andy Burnham’s superpower. Clearly, he now speaks softly but carries a big stick – with a nail in the end. Andy the sweet-natured assassin. As Andrei Gromyko noted of Gorbachev, he has a nice smile but iron teeth.

Burnham has been consistently underrated. He was content to take criticism for being all things to all people and assume whatever positions were needed to remain relevant in Labour politics, but clearly he has been  working on shaping his own agenda.

A combination of devo max, active redistribution and prioritising working-class lives, together with some red lines on issues like rough sleeping, which he regards as a moral test of the state’s capacity to deliver social goods.

Already, we are much closer to the definition of ‘Burnhamism’ than we ever were with Starmer. Similarly there are a phalanx of club-wielding Burnhamites ready to do battle for their man. Being a ‘Starmerite’ was to risk being confused for an item of executive luggage.

All of which means Burnham is the only game in town. He cannot plausibly be replaced, however things pan out over the next three years. And no-one is much interested in noises-off from displaced Starmer-era voices.

Only a Burnhamite walks into the pub these days.

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Will Burnham call a snap election?

25/08/2026, 10:02:41 PM

There’s obviously been something of an uptick in Labour’s fortunes, post-Burnham. A run of poll leads nudging the reds out front, while the bookies are quoting a rather ungenerous 28/17 on King Andy’s prospects of winning the next election.

It’s done enough to calm fluttering hearts in Labourland after the seemingly inexorable drift under Keir Starmer, whose own popularity ratings nestled at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. A reprieve, then, certainly. A recovery? Kinda. But is this the sort of backdrop that might convince Andy Burnham to call a snap general election?

This is the chatter. Strike now before the first flush of popularity subsides. Don’t dither like Gordon Brown did back in 2007 after Tony Blair quit/ was forced out. There’s no  advantage in eking out your predecessor’s term.  Seize the day and secure a fresh mandate – and five more vital years.

The prize is renewed approbation from the electorate for Burnham’s decent, blokey social democracy. A chance for Labour to govern in its truest form.  Not compelled to forgo its instincts like New Labour, nor relying on capitalising on the Tories’ wretchedness, like Starmer did.

Then there are the array of secondary benefits. Stop Reform in its tracks. Smother the Greens before they become a thing. And break the Tories in two. There’s a good chance a returned Burnham – even with a reduced majority – will skewer Farage, Polanski and Badenoch in the bargain.

It will certainly plunge the other parties into an existential funk.Each are talent deserts and perilously short of alternative leaders. Amid the confusion, Burnham prevails, taking Britain into the 2030s. Cheap buses and a mayor in every postcode!

The alternative – waiting and seeing – is not much of an alternative. Labour will start taking in water following October’s Budget. There’s no cash and lots of hard choices. And that’s before factoring-in what might happen with the US-Iran crapfest in the Straits of Hormuz.

A veteran of Gordon Brown’s cabinet, Andy Burnham had a ringside seat the last time a new Labour PM prevaricated at the moment he could have shaped his destiny. Are we going to see a repeat?

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Burnham hopes his micro-radicalism is enough to win Labour a hearing

24/08/2026, 10:05:47 PM

The Irish have a tradition called the ‘month’s mind’ where relatives attend Mass to remember a loved one four weeks after their demise. Give or take a couple of days, its a month since Keir Starmer resigned as prime minister, although, frankly, it could be two years.

His passing as PM feels total. Gone. Forgotten. Disavowed. There is nothing even close to mourning. The Burnham Premiership is Year One. The past 24 months in office are reduced to junk status. Is that fair? Probably not. Keir Starmer wasn’t that bad, however his central fault – non-existent political antennae – combined with a lumpy, awkward public persona – means he will also be the last introvert to serve as PM.

The King is dead, Long Live the King of the North, so to speak. Yet Labour’s fundamental problem remains: How to govern when there’s no money to change anything? On any metric, Labour is light years from making the transformational change promised back in 2024. Andy Burnham has not learned how to turn lead into gold, merely brought greater flair and guile to proceedings.

Take housing. Despite promising to build 1.5 million new homes by 2029 (a pathetically inadequate figure to begin with) the final figure for 2025 was just 115,350 – 18,261 fewer than the Tories managed in 2023. With higher taxes in the offing and with the spectre of a sovereign debt crisis stalking the public finances, Labour is left treading water; hoping it can market small, incremental improvements as evidence of its worthiness to govern.

Buying people ‘breathing space’ is how Burnham is framing these gestures. Capping bus fares and making subscriptions easier to cancel – helping ease the cost of living crisis – is decent politics, but measly policy. Paradoxically, it is Burnham hoping for breathing space.

He needs to see growth in the economy as desperately as his predecessor did. His ‘micro-radicalism’ is the antithesis of ‘transformational change’ – but its all Labour has in the cupboard, for now. As the long, lazy summer of 2026 begins to drift into autumn and normal political service resumes, the question is whether this is going to be enough.

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