The Chummy PM..
And so Andy Burnham concludes his first week as Heir Apparent and it seems to be going well, so far. His casual approachable manner makes quite the contrast with Sir Keir Starmer, the robotic Prime Minister. Burnham has at least three advantages over Starmer and each constitutes a threat to the political right.
First of all, he is untainted with contact from the Labour Government. He has plausible deniability from all those disastrous decisions that Starmer, Reeves and the rest of them have made. This matters as the public will not judge HIM on all those things they judge the current regime. The board is being wiped clean and he can add to that feeling of a “new” Government when he replaces Starmer’s minions with his own. It looks like we will see many hard left women occupy senior roles and whilst that will end badly, it will be portrayed as Burnham “modernising” the “blokey”Starmer game. The mainstream media will lap this up. Watch Labour RISE in the pools and Reform fall. I’m not saying this is good, just that it will happen.
Next, Burnham is much further to the left of his party than Starmer ever was. Beneath that ever so reasonable exterior, lurks a raging Fabian. This will hold him in good stead with the majority on the Labour backbenches. This means Labour will be more stable going forward and that in itself is something the right needs to factor in.
Third, unlike Starmer, Burnham is media friendly. In the age of 24/7 social media that matters. He has already started doing little videos on his phone which whilst cringe, show he understand the power of media and he can do it in a way which will make a point. Farage has real competition now. Starmer was stilted and incapable of doing such comms.
Of course good vibes does not necessarily make a good Prime minister and the really interesting bit will be to see how much of this survives contact with reality. I suspect much won’t but it certainly changes the mood of the body politic.
Once the self styled “King of the North” gets into Downing Street next month, we will be in a new era of British politics.
Assuming power with no challenger, makes him look like a dictator with no authority from the people. It all looks like a political stitch up and should never have occurred.
The King is maintained largely to ensure fair play from the very top of the political system. This he has failed to do. It is yet another crisis that the King looks powerless, perhaps even incompetent, to deal with.
Mr Nice Guy Burnham has a bad record for giving the pushier men of the Muslim Communities everything they demand. They sit on his Committees, they push to assume more and more for themselves. Burnham will not push back against them. He will not stop the boats. He will not save the economy. He will not save our Defences. He will not deal with Grooming gangs, past or present. Our children are not safe. We are not safe. We MUST keep pushing for a General Election and the Right MUST hold their noses and vote for Reform as the largest party to at least get the ball rolling in the right direction.
I think the "Burnham bounce" will be largely restricted to long-term Labour supporters who couldn't stand Starmer and realised that he was an electoral liability.
But returning the party to "factory settings" is going to be a short-term solution. He needs to make radical changes to keep his left wing onside, but he has no money to do this. He needs to grow the economy to get more tax, but he has zero experience of this, and the breaks for businesses this requires will involve cutting benefits still further. Somebody will be massively alienated by whatever stance he takes on immigration, rape gangs, and general Islamification, and both camps are electoral vital for Labour.
Starmer has enraged the tiger by riding it, and no amount of fake northern mateyness will save Burnham as he prepares to jump on its back.