Definitely better at Tik-Tok, not sure about “governmenting.”
Every new Prime Minister inherits two jobs. One is to govern. The other is to convince the country that governing has already begun. Andy Burnham’s first week suggests that modern politics has become better at announcements, but worse at delivery.
Following Andy Burnham’s coronation as King of Labour last Friday (17th July) the choreography of transition delivered him to his new (part-time) digs at 10 Downing Street with nary a hitch. A short no-podium speech was presumably meant to showcase directness and “relate-ability.”
The speech was “OK”, but continued the already worrying trend of being economical with the detail, not to mention the economics. There’s only so much you can say in 550 words, but after the perennial favourite announcement of a 10-year plan to be revealed in the Autumn, Burnham said he would make some smaller commitments to ease the burden of the cost of living.
Burnham committed his new Government to
- devolving more central government powers and make politics more collaborative
- reducing unemployment amongst young people (the NEET question)
- building more council houses (the Rayner question)
- bringing most utilities back under public control
- ending rough sleeping nationwide (also a Manchester commitment, not realised)
- and some immediate actions to provide limited “breathing space” on the cost of living.
Afternoon of the Long Knives
The first day (and night) produced the most important overtly political (and, sorry Andy, clearly factional) statement in the removal of all of Sir Keir’s most loyal supporters from the Cabinet. Out went David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Steve Reed, Peter Kyle, Lord Hermer, Liz Kendall, Jo Stevens, Hilary Benn, Darren Jones, Jenny Chapman and Nick Thomas-Symonds without much ado. (Only Steve Reed made dissatisfied noises within a very long departure letter .)
Regicides Rewarded
Making John Healey Chancellor was a clever move to ensure that the Treasury does not develop further as an alternative (and ultimately more powerful) seat of government outside No 10’s control.
Other guns were effectively spiked (at the nation’s expense) as Streeting seems to have been given an admittedly important brief in Defence, but one which he is likely to struggle with and Miliband was sent off to travel the world on jet fuel guzzlers, which seemed an excellently ironic way to remove his irritating lack of empathy and understanding from interfering directly in No 10’s agenda.
Keeping Shabana Mahmood at the Home Office will allow her to work as a human shield for that nice Burnham lad when the changes to immigration regulations infuriate most of the harder Left. Yvette Cooper at Health will be a bit odd, but it is an important brief that needs a competent and diligent long service medal recipient. Unintended consequence: Cooper may be rather good at Health (sub-question: will she be given responsibility for sorting social care too?)
Oh puh-lease!
Most cringe moment of the whole Downing Street Dance was of course provided by none other than the Sandwich-Eater-in-Chief, who rather too obviously waited at the pedestrian security entrance to Downing Street so that he could “by chance” walk up the street with his bezzy mate Shabana and present a happily unified new Cabinet clip for the waiting cameras. It is typical of Miliband to make the mechanics of this “chance encounter” obvious. The man is a walking PR pothole.
Dawn Chorus
Then came the trickle of “immediate actions” that the new Prime Minister had promised on the steps of Downing Street. These were delivered by the new/old technique of Press Releases embargoed until 6am, meaning that dawn was greeted by hacks scrabbling about to make early morning sense of:
- Monday: ending rough sleeping nationwide by the allocation of £340m of funding already within the Housing Department’s budget. Most estimates suggest that there are about 4,500 rough sleepers across the nation so ending this looks as though it is costed at £75,500 per rough sleeper. This seems surprisingly high cost if anything.
- Tuesday: removing the 5% VAT levied on domestic electricity bills should save an average household about £45 over a year. The cost of £850m was announced as being covered by the scrapping the Digital ID scheme, but this was obviously nonsense as the Digital ID scheme had not been funded itself (as Darren Jones quickly leapt on to “X” to point out.) The money for the VAT reduction will have to be found in the next Budget.
- Wednesday: capping bus fares at £2 rather than the £3 proposed by Starmer’s government from January 2027 at a cost of about £500m by replacing grants for international climate projects with loans. Replacing funny money by incomprehensible money seems like a sound plan.
- Thursday: cutting business rates for pubs and clubs by 20% in the financial year from April 2027 by removing relief from other retailers who do not make a positive contribution to their communities (vape shops were mentioned although the mechanism and fund generation were not.) 20% of one of establishment costs for everyone’s favourite local business in the next financial year will undoubtedly be called too little, too late, but it makes a good announcement.
- Friday: the new PM took a close-to-his-weekend working day at the hastily re-named No 10 North at Heron House in Manchester (where presumably the digital spooks of GCHQ’s Northern outpost have been squashed into smaller offices.) The PM chaired a meeting of his newly revived National Economic Council which he aims to make a driver of devolution by including Ministers and Mayors in a general Northern talking shop.
Anyone for Beer and Sandwiches?
Students of Harold Wilson may detect a familiar flavour. Wilson sought to demonstrate that government understood everyday concerns through “Little Things that Mean a Lot” while his famous “beer and sandwiches” meetings symbolised a more collaborative style of governing.
Burnham’s “breathing space” announcements and No.10 North suggest a similar instinct: establish momentum first, substance afterwards. (Owen Bowcott, The Guardian, 29th December 2005 “Wilson tried to save pint and curry favour” although there is a more magisterial discussion of the inadequacies of these policies in Ben Pimlott’s eponymous biography “Harold Wilson” HarperCollins, London, 1992.)
As so often in Britain, this nation of history, none of this is entirely new. Every incoming government seeks visible momentum before it can produce legislative impetus. What has changed is the speed. The 24-hour news cycle and social media reward governments that can announce something every morning. Governing, unfortunately, takes rather longer, in fact rather longer than it did for Harold Wilson because everything has got so much more complicated.
Burnham has got his work cut out to impress this lot
One group will be particularly worth watching over this Summer of policy cobbling and compromise at No 10: younger voters remain politically restless and significantly less attached to Labour than older generations. Burnham’s early small-scale measures may prove popular, but they will not answer the larger question of whether Labour’s instincts still match the priorities of the great block of voters who have become detached from the Labour habit over the last two years.
Burnham’s first week has undoubtedly been energetic. It has also been markedly more optimistic. Whether it has been the first week of a Government or the first week of a new Comms Strategy (“Out with the grid, in with the matrix!”) will become clearer when the Autumn brings not just another announcement, but a Budget, legislation and the inevitable trade-offs that governing requires.
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