Andy Burnham- the Prime Minister
So Andy Burnham became the latest Prime Minister and, not for the first time, the critics are sharpening their knives and the public are not entirely sold on the idea. In fact this record is so old now that we know exactly what tracks to listen to on both sides of the album. It was released last year and the same composition of songs is still doing the circuit. Maybe we should ignore all this white noise, this background confusion, the constant references to yet another sequence of General Elections.
This could really become quite tiresome and repetitive, so much so that you wonder why we watch this farcical freak show, this hilarious circus whereby the high wire act and the clown keep bumping into each other. Maybe they should dispense with the tricycle and just blow raspberries at each other. In fact why don't we just cut to the chase and abolish the current political system once and for all. It clearly isn't working and besides those wretched politicians are just a waste of time.
And yet Andy Burnham became the 59th Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and some of us felt a deep sense of smug satisfaction and vindication. Months ago you predicted that Burnham had all the relevant credentials for the job, a man of hard, gritty common sense, plucky pragmatism, a neat line in eloquence and an abiding love for his hometown of Manchester. There was something of the working class trencherman about Burnham, a readiness to roll up his sleeves and get cracking on the running of the country.
So it was that the outgoing Sir Keir Starmer stood bravely outside 10 Downing Street and wondered whether the job had been worth all of the trouble. He duly announced his resignation from the post of Prime Minister and by Monday it was all painfully official. What possesses a rational, coherent, exceptionally intelligent man to undertake one of the most arduous tasks anybody could wish to undertake? Surely the poisoned chalice would simply take its toll and two years later, you're gone.
Starmer was, admittedly, cheered to the rafters and made to feel that he was still loved and wanted by his devoted fans, his loyal zealots and disciples, the men and women who still believe in him implicitly. But there was a palpable sense of relief and an acceptance of the inevitable. Starmer had got it completely wrong, his weaknesses, foibles and shortcomings plain to see. He'd introduced a winter fuel allowance which he admitted was badly conceived and executed and then somehow lost his way.
So the human rights barrister, a man of enormous intellect and academic achievement, was told to walk out of 10, Downing Street and never darken these corridors ever again. Starmer's wife stood there smiling and supportive as you would have expected her to. But this was no time for regrets because they might have been construed as counter productive. Of course Starmer's term of office had only lasted two years which, in theory, was longer than Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak but it just felt hollow, smacking of desperation, short termism at its briefest and sounding for all the world like the part time job of a temporary legal secretary who could only be guaranteed a six month probationary period.
The vultures that had been hovering over the House of Commons in Westminster and now they'd wolfed down the carcass with ruthless relish. Andy Burnham was waiting in the wings, poised to strike like a lethal cobra, spitting vitriol but as diplomatic as it was possible to be. Burnham had always been privately aspirational, a careerist politician driven by fierce ambition and world domination. He was lusting after the Prime Minister's job and although he'd given little indication, it was still a nagging yearning.
As we all know by now Burnham used to be the Mayor of Manchester and is a fervent supporter of Everton football club. He would certainly have heard of the Messiah who was Howard Kendall and that League Championship trophy during the 1980s. He might have been aware of Kendall's magnificent midfield alliance with Colin Harvey and Alan Ball and quite certainly Kevin Sheedy, Paul Bracewell and then Trevor Steven delivering inch perfect crosses for Graham Sharp.
But essentially Burnham will always point to the commendable work he did for the grand city of Manchester and how he transformed this great industrial city into one of the most thriving centres of commercial excellence. Burnham was the one who sided with Manchester blowing the trumpet for the City, extolling its virtues before busting a gut to make it work and prosper.
And now he wants to do the same for the rest of Great Britain because he cares for his country, his sceptred isle, the country that gave him the chance to lead the country and maintain its life force. But Burnham wants nothing more than to be trusted and believed in because for the last two years the Labour party in government may have been found lacking in those vital qualities. Starmer probably did his best but he didn't quite step up to the mark, burdened by some mysterious force that none of us could put our finger on.
So much so that the pressure became too overwhelming and he fell on that cliched sword. Behind him of course was one Wes Streeting who looked as if he was on the Prime Minister but then found some sinister looking piece of military equipment and betrayed him just like that. It wasn't a machete that stabbed Starmer in the back because that would have been far too barbaric but, suffice it to say, Streeting made his objections abundantly clear. On one early summer morning, Streeting stormed out of 10 Downing Street and looked as though he'd just received an electric shock.
Then last Monday morning the latest Punch and Judy show made yet another appearance on the political battleground that is Westminster. Some of us now regard the latest activities in the House of Commons as some freak show reminiscent of a local park fairground. This time though there are no flying tea cups, roller coasters nor is there the traditional goldfish which you invariably win if you can hit the coconut shy. This is politics in the 21st century and don't we know about it?
The difference this time is that Britain has a Prime Minister from up North, the Northern heartlands where the people are straight talking, wittty, forthright, no holds barred, never knowingly mincing their words. The people of Manchester are no nonsense, totally without affectation nor airs or graces. They come from a land where the miners from a long time ago would walk into dirty coal fields, their faces blackened with soot, dirt and grime, before embarking on a hard day's graft. Burnham knows that.
Manchester used to be the embodiment of the Industrial Revolution when men were men and life was structured, rigid, programmed to last for ever. The men would clock on at their respective factories, spend every day and all day, lifting and heaving, screwing on the nuts and bolts of machinery, masking up at boiling hot furnaces and then becoming hot metal sheet workers determined to earn a decent day's pay to put food and water on the table for their families.
But, and as the cynics would point out, that was then and now is the present day. The Manchester Ship Canal still has an important role to play in the role of society but maybe not quite to the same extent. Now Manchester has its own vast media centre in Salford, a home now occupied by the august BBC while around the city huge IT offices, sumptuous warehouses, new and luxurious housing and a whole host of vibrant restaurants, cafes and high tech companies have throw open their welcoming doors.
A while back my wonderful son took me to the National Football Centre in Manchester and of course it was stunning because you could personally relate to it. Lowry's match stalk men, kids and dogs are perhaps just a historical footnote but today's Manchester's paintings are equally as attractive. Andy Burnham has been entrusted with the kind of unenviable responsibility of putting the whole of the country back on the map of the world. But envy is a bad thing so perhaps we should just wish him all the luck in the world. He may need it.
At the beginning of the week Burnham emerged into the London sunlight and parked himself outside 10 Downing Street. There were no wooden lecterns, no prompts and nothing to suggest that he was reading from the autocue. This was a natural, comfortable and easy going man who looked at his people with a charming air of reassurance about him, nothing forced or contrived, just straight down the camera and engaging with a public he hopes he won't disappoint. But haven't we heard this song a million times?
In 1964 the last Northern Prime Minister Harold Wilson also made those now customary promises in his Labour party manifesto. He smoked his pipe for the next seven years and there was a reliability about Wilson that some must have found very soothing and comforting. Wilson was never one for impassioned rants on electoral orange crates, nor did he throw his arms about wildly just to emphasise the point he was making.
Wilson was born and bred in Huddersfield, a Huddersfield fan but rarely mentioning the Terriers in any of his rousing speeches. But Wilson invented the Open University, he challenged the trade unions with verbal fist fights and then just got on with it. He once declared the White Heat of Technology to thousands of sceptical businessmen and economists who never believed that neither computers nor the Internet would ever have made a good idea at the time.
Andy Burnham looks and sounds different. He may have gone to Oxford University but the positive proletariat in Burnham will use his job description to make sure that this time the wheels won't fall off the country and crises will be dismissed as a swear word. Burnham uses the language of the people not the flowery platitudes of his illustrious predecessors. He looks for all the world as if he may know what he's talking about which of course could be dangerous in the extreme.
Realistically the jury may be out on Burnham's leadership for at least the next ten minutes. This may be seen as gross flippancy on your part but somehow you despair of those around Burnham who still think the Labour party are going to hell in a handcart. The electorate always speak from the heart and democracy knows where the country may be going. But this is the umpteenth Prime Minister in so many years and they just keep multiplying like rabbits. What to make of it all, though?
At some point in perhaps the immediate future, Burnham will shoot himself in the foot with some wiseacre remark or some some silly, facetious set of comments that will be taken completely out of context or blown out of proportion. Who's the next Prime Minister to make some ill advised statement about the British economy or some rash, tactless remark about the bone idle, young unemployed. Surely not Burnham though.
As soon as he walked through the front door of Downing Street, Burnham did vow to eliminate rough sleepers out in the street with nowhere to go nor live. Burnham has to get his head around the whole knotty issue of the homeless, the estranged, the forgotten ones, the unfortunate people who have yet to find somewhere they can call home permanently. Burnham knows all about the lucrative potential of oil and gas, rising energy prices, the cost of living predicament faced by over 70 million people. He also knows that the job of being Prime Minister is far from simple and that eventually he will get it in the neck.
Then there is the widening poverty gap, the traumatic hardships suffered by all of those sections of the public who just can't afford to pay extortionate bills or switch on their central heating during the winter. He may think of those isolated council estates where nothing happens apart from the number of disillusioned kids hanging about during the school summer holidays with nothing to occupy their days apart from maintaining contact with their friends on social media giants such as Facebook, X or Tik Tok.
This is the point when Burnham should make his presence felt. On the day of his confirmation as Prime Minister, the former Mayor of Manchester seemingly got his fingers dirty. He was seen at a homeless centre at 7am chopping up vegetables and keeping his finger on the pulse of the nation. So there may be hope here. We watch objectively and impartially from the side lines hoping that it all works out for the best for Andy Burnham.
We will watch him board a plane to see USA president Donald Trump. Now of course this could either become one of those historic moments where it all clicks seamlessly for both Trump and Burnham. But as we know there is a disturbing underlying anxiety, a fear of the unknown. Most of us haven't a clue what suit, shirt and tie Trump may decide to put on for the day ahead let alone building relationships with Burnham.
On Monday it was all about business as usual. Burnham was all delighted smiles, clapping his Labour party supporters with whole hearted approval and then thanking his mum with all the gratitude of a man who thanks the vicar on Sunday morning for an admirable service, hands closed together with a fleeting gesture of appreciation. It could be very much uphill and daunting from here onwards. But of course for somebody who made this prediction about Burnham's appointment at the top, you'd rather let the lovely people of Britain to make up their mind.
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