The Burnham wishlist turns out to perfectly match that of the median Labour member
“Get a grip.” Andy Burnham was offering some helpful advice to Keir Starmer. The full quote, in the interests of fairness, was “I’m saying get a grip on the everyday basics.” But those three words in the middle were his clear message to the prime minister.
Not, to be clear, that Burnham is interested in replacing Starmer. Nothing could be further from his mind, he told a packed Guardian event at the Labour party conference on Monday afternoon. “In the almost nine years I’ve done this job,” he complained, “people have just constantly speculated.” How does this keep happening to him? He’s just a regional mayor, minding his own business, giving interviews about his national leadership prospects to the Telegraph and the New Statesman and local radio and now the Guardian, and for some reason people keep writing it up. It’s like he’s cursed.
A decade ago Burnham was mocked for his pretty-boy eyelashes. Now his face has creased to the point where he might be his own Spitting Image puppet, but if anything this has only increased his matinee idol quality. He had eschewed a suit and tie and was wearing a man-of-the-people white T-shirt under a tight black jacket, a look good for anything from the school run to the pub to a leadership soft launch.
Rachel Reeves has a terrible habit of combining rhetorical flourishes with epic windiness
His message was that he’s just an ordinary northern man who likes chips and gravy and doesn’t have time for any of your fancy southern plotting. “I wasn’t in the bars like you lot last night,” he said. “I’m going to watch Everton tonight. Proper living in the real world.” This was probably self-parody. Let’s hope so.
“I have many conversations with members of parliament,” he said. And of course he does. Over the course of an hour we learned that he has the ideal policy position of a Labour Fantasy Alternative Leader. Abolish the two-child limit, cut rail fares, build more council houses, rejoin the EU, change the electoral system: the Burnham wishlist turns out to perfectly match that of the median Labour member.
Barely a year after taking power, Reeves is having to remind the party that winning elections is better than losing them
Not, to be clear, that Burnham was trying to damage the prime minister. Quite the opposite! “I spent a large part of my summer pressing for the Hillsborough Law to be strengthened,” he said, making it pretty clear that this had been resisted in London, creating the prospect of a furious row this week. How could anyone suggest he was undermining Starmer, he told us, when he was actually trying to save Starmer from his instinctive idiocy?
“I did everything I could to make this conference a success,” he said, before adding darkly, “more than some other people did.” Conservative party feuds are played out by MPs who think they’re in House of Cards, all duplicity and double-cross. Labour’s battles feel more like Coronation Street: people who lived their whole lives around each other and still haven’t forgotten who said what at nan’s funeral. You’re never more than 10 feet away from a grudge at Labour conference.
The real reason that Burnham is getting all this attention is the weakness of the main squad. The big moment of the day was supposed to have been the Chancellor’s speech at noon, but I sat through all of it and I couldn’t honestly tell you what it was about.
Rachel Reeves has a terrible habit of combining rhetorical flourishes with epic windiness. “Let the message ring out,” she began at one point, “that there is only one party that was founded by working people and only one party that is committed absolutely to defending their interests, on jobs and on pay, on rights at work, on health and in our schools, on the safety of our streets and the strength of our communities, on energy security and on national security.” I’m not sure there are enough church bells in Britain to get all of that over.
“Don’t ever let anyone tell you there’s no difference between a Labour government and a Tory government,” she said, over and over. It was probably intended as a dig at Reform, who make this argument a lot, but it was too obscure to work as a message and too wordy to be a chorus.
She was interrupted once by a pro-Palestinian protestor, and she looked a little terrified. “We understand your cause,” she said, which is not quite “I’ll tell you and you’ll listen.”
MPs had been walked in together and sat in a block next to the press, and they knew their duty was to rise to their feet and clap loudly at every opportunity. At first they did this dutifully, but as time went on they grew weary. Towards the end of her speech, Reeves had a section attacking Reform directly. “Who is standing up for Britain’s working people?” she asked, and they all remained seated. “Who is standing up?” she asked several more times, and the answer was clear: not us.
The main message from it was not the intended one. “In every single one of the 451 days that we have been in office, we have achieved more than we did in the more than 5,000 days that we spent powerless in opposition,” she said. It’s really not a good sign for Labour that barely a year after taking power, Reeves is having to remind the party that winning elections is better than losing them.
Which brings us back to Burnham, the party’s fantasy alternative leader. “Greater Manchester has gone first,” he said. “but I want the same for everywhere in England.” He was talking about devolution. Wasn’t he?
