Will new British PM Andy Burnham be less awful than Keir Starmer?
It’s very hard to say.
Here’s one viewpoint:
The uncertainty arises because Burnham is a rare figure in British politics: a genuine political veteran who refashioned himself as an insurgent. Born in 1970 in Aintree, a suburb of Liverpool, he was first elected as a member of parliament (MP) for Leigh in 2001. He served under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Culture Secretary, and, from 2009, Health Secretary. His signature achievement from that era—launching the Hillsborough Independent Panel into the 1989 stadium disaster—established his reputation as a politician who takes on institutional cover-ups on behalf of ordinary people, a theme he has cultivated ever since. …
As mayor of Greater Manchester from 2017, Burnham won three consecutive elections by widening margins, earning him the sobriquet “King of the North.” He built a policy record on buses, housing, and homelessness that made him Labour’s most popular politician in the polls. He belongs to the party’s so-called “soft left:” to Starmer’s left on economics and public services, but no Corbynite.
To Starmer’s left, eh? I suppose this is what that refers to:
Burnham promised in his first speech outside 10 Downing Street to “build a new economy where we put life’s essentials back under stronger public control.”
What could possibly go wrong?
More:
Burnham has pledged to reverse nearly two decades of low growth since the 2008 financial crisis by harnessing public and private capital for transport, housing, and infrastructure. This, in essence, is his mayoral playbook scaled nationally. His signature gesture is a “No. 10 North” in Manchester to coordinate devolution, alongside an ambitious social housing program, taking back control of public utilities, nationalizing steel, and expanded social care. …
… He has committed to the government’s existing borrowing limits, pledged fiscal discipline, and promised to reduce the welfare bill. Much of the substance is continuity with the Starmer-Reeves agenda—industrial strategy, self-sufficiency in sectors essential to national security, directing procurement toward domestic production—but wrapped in a more compelling political story. Burnham’s talk of “sovereign capabilities” in shipbuilding, energy, AI, and quantum would not sound out of place in Paris or Brussels.
Sounds rather magical, doesn’t it? Expanded social services along with fiscal discipline? Financed by shipbuilding, AI, etc.? More details can be found here.
Even the Guardian is wondering.
By the way, Britain has had seven prime ministers in the last ten years.
Don’t look behind the curtain Dorothy.
Possibly more awful is my bet.
I know nothing about Burham, other than what I’m reading here. But here’s a thought. Maybe, just maybe… he promised improvements in Greater Manchester and more or less delivered on them. That’s nothing to sneeze at.
Contrast that to Pete Buttigieg who had little impact on South Bend when he was mayor. (Oh, but his father was some Marxist hotshot.) Or mayor Karen Bass. The Palisades fire was such a disaster of disfunction on multiple levels. Mayor Bass and her predecessors were directly responsible for much of the unpreparedness.
I am increasingly astonished that Americans don’t really seem be aware of what these politicians they elect are doing, or are NOT doing, or possible don’t connect causes and effects.
A part of the problem is that media everywhere follows the notion that “if it bleeds, it leads.” What about the good stuff that is happening? Too boring.