Andy Burnham must offer Britain more than Starmerism with better PR

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Trade unionist Paul Embery fears what may lay ahead for the Prime Minister should he offer up more of the same

After the past few weeks, observers could be forgiven for assuming Britain had adopted a system of government by TikTok. For it seemed that every public utterance by our new Prime Minister – from announcements on policy to his favourite Greggs snack – was communicated by short-form video.

That was until this week. Because, with the parliamentary summer recess now over, normal business has resumed, and Andy Burnham finally found himself in the bear pit of the House of Commons and exposed to the scrutiny of his fellow MPs.

A major statement from the dispatch box on Tuesday was followed by his first Prime Minister’s Questions the following day.

Burnham didn’t exactly set the world alight with his performances, and his delivery was at times Starmer-esque in its clunkiness. But he gave little hint of feeling out of place or overawed. Though that should hardly surprise us. After all, for all his folksy northern charm and anti-SW1 rhetoric, Burnham is every inch the classic Westminster politician, having worked in the orbit of parliament and policymaking since he was 24. And, as a former Cabinet minister, statements and questions in the House are meat and drink to him.

Much of what Burnham said in parliament was music to the ears of an old-school socialist like me. He was certainly correct to identify several decades of neoliberalism as a major cause of Britain’s decline. It was this ideology, characterised by a belief in the infallibility of the market and hostility to state intervention, which ultimately led to power and wealth being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands in our country, as well as widespread deindustrialisation, the gutting of local government, a chronic shortage of affordable housing and, as national parliaments became increasingly subservient to global corporations, the slow erosion of our democracy.

Burnham was right, too, to recognise that the sell-off of public utilities – such as rail, water and energy – has proved disastrous. Surely only the most rabid free market ideologue could fail to see it.

But while he may have accurately diagnosed many of the problems, the PM offered precious little in the way of solutions. There were the usual references to his achievements in Manchester, talk of decentralising power from Whitehall, getting young people into work, buses (of course), and liberal deployment of his favourite buzzwords, “hope” and “positivity”.

But with the exception of a pledge to follow the standard EU-Nato line on Ukraine, the big geopolitical and macroeconomic narrative was largely missing – meaning that on some of the most vital issues confronting our country, scarcely anyone knows where Burnham stands. Indeed, he may not even know it himself.

And that gaping void will need to be filled swiftly. For no Prime Minister can, particularly during such a tumultuous time, run a country without an overarching strategic plan.

Burnham, it seems, remains locked in the mindset of a city mayor. Many of his policy announcements and media appearances so far have focused on issues – such as cracking down on fake discounts and building homes near railway stations – which, while not unimportant, are highly parochial and usually the sort of stuff that gets left to junior ministers.

He needs to remember that he is now Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury, and that means confronting head-on the major touchstone issues that have the most profound effect on voters’ lives and will determine exactly what sort of country we will be a decade from now.

His appearances in the Commons this week represented the perfect opportunity to set out his stall. But after sitting through around four hours of it, I cannot say I am any of the wiser as to what his plan for the future might be. Does he even have one?

What, for example, is Burnham’s economic programme? How does he propose to achieve much-needed GDP growth and improved levels of employment, investment and productivity? How will he deliver on his ambition to reindustrialise Britain? What will he do to end our over-reliance on financial services and reinvigorate the real economy, where goods are produced and wealth created?

One thing is certain: if he sticks to his pledge to abide by Rachel Reeves’s absurd – and literally counter-productive – fiscal rules, then he will be trying to achieve these things with one hand tied behind his back. Much better to reject the long-ingrained Treasury orthodoxy that has served our nation so ill in recent decades and use the massive economic capacity available to a sovereign government – such as through new money creation – to direct productive state investment where it is desperately needed. Ultimately, a country cannot cut or tax its way from a stagnant economy to a flourishing one; it requires well-targeted outlay instead.

And what of other key issues? Our lack of energy security; the small boats chaos; the housing crisis; sky-high NHS waiting lists; the surging number of young people not in employment, education or training; the deepening welfare culture; the communal sectarianism and social disintegration afflicting many of our communities; the collapse of public trust in our national institutions? What is Burnham’s intended direction of travel on these things? Does anyone know? Does he even understand how acute some of these problems are?

Some may insist that the new PM should be given time – but he simply doesn’t have that luxury. Hard-pressed voters see a country that is failing badly, and for two decades or more they have been paying a heavy price for that failure. They want a leader with a clear and bold plan for sorting out the fundamentals, not one who spends time shooting videos at illegal waste dumps.

Gravitas is, for a Prime Minister, a more important quality than likeability. Raising people’s living standards matters more than the ability to bash out a Smiths song on the guitar. Burnham has, relatively speaking, enjoyed a relaxing summer, without facing too much scrutiny. But he is about to find out that voters are not hankering for an improved version of Keir Starmer or a continuation of the liberal-centrist orthodoxy but with a few minor tweaks. They want change – hot, strong and fast.

Neither, I suspect, will voters be turned on by Burnham’s “Big Tent” strategy, which is aimed at encouraging the main parties to work together in major policy areas and in the interests of what he describes as “problem solving rather than point scoring”. If anything, that approach will merely serve to reinforce the idea that Britain is governed by a uniparty and will play right into the hands of establishment outriders such as Reform and the Greens.

At any rate, adversarial politics are a good thing, fostering greater scrutiny and accountability and keeping ministers on their toes. Too much consensus results in poor policymaking – and ultimately a lack of real choice at the ballot box.

In his appearance before MPs on Tuesday, Burnham said, “Britain is not where anyone would wish it to be.” He was really saying, “Britain is in a right royal mess.” Everyone knows it, and everyone can see it.

The question is: what is he going to do to put things right? A Prime Minister, especially one in charge of a declining nation, cannot succeed by the “feelgood factor” or “blokiness” alone. He needs a hard-nosed political strategy and some clear-eyed radical policies. Otherwise he will find that things start to unravel quickly.