Chris Deerin
I asked a Labour grandee recently what he made of Andy Burnham. “He has the potential to be a great prime minister, and he has the potential to be a great failure,” was the response.
Burnham’s speech to Labour conference on Tuesday left open both of those possible outcomes. In terms of oratory, it was magnificent. Burnham is the finest public speaker to inhabit 10 Downing Street since Tony Blair. Empathetic, human, genuine, funny, but also deadly serious, with a rock-solid moral and political message.
It is impossible to imagine Keir Starmer delivering an address of this kind – or even imagine him wanting to. In his major policy announcements, Burnham showed he is willing to run towards gunfire. He knows what he wants to do, and knows much of it will be controversial and even damaging to his current popularity, perhaps fatally. But he wants the fight.
The pensions triple lock, for so long a shibboleth left untouched by leaders of all parties, mainly due to fear of a severe electoral backlash from older voters, will be ditched, replaced by a “double lock” whereby pensions will rise either by the rate of inflation or 2.5 per cent, whichever is higher. As Sir Humphrey would say, a brave choice, prime minister.
Social care, which successive governments have sought and spectacularly failed to tackle, will be a priority. This will be expensive, its costs only partly covered by changes to the triple lock, and will require tax rises of one sort or another.
Labour will go into the next election on a pledge to reform the voting system, bringing to an end centuries of first-past-the-post majoritarian rule, replaced by some form of proportional representation. This would fulfil Blair’s early desire to unite the centre and centre-left, creating the conditions for a progressive coalition with the Lib Dems.
Public ownership – or at least greater public control – of the utilities, is back. Burnham, fired by his success with Manchester’s publicly-owned bus network and his belief that the privatisations of the Thatcher years took Britain in the wrong direction, has plans for housing, water and energy.
And he wants to take the UK back towards a closer relationship with the EU, even leaving open the option of rejoining.
You can agree with all, some or none of these policies, but there is no denying we now have a prime minister of genuine conviction and with a clear plan to change the country fundamentally and permanently.
It’s one hell of an agenda. Will he succeed? Most of his proposals won’t come into effect until the next parliament. The government finances remain deeply precarious – we are still very much “in hock” to the bond markets. Our debt and borrowing costs are prohibitively high. Taxes are clearly going up. The cost-of-living crisis shows no sign of easing. Money must be found for a huge increase in the defence budget. This is the constraining economic reality Burnham faces, like all his recent predecessors.
But at least there is now a clear direction of travel, something the UK has lacked for too long. If this isn’t quite an Old Labour government, there is a fair amount of Old Labour about it. The Conservatives under the impressive Kemi Badenoch, and Nigel Farage’s Reform, can focus on a clearly defined target – left versus right is once more the central debate in our politics.
The stakes couldn’t be higher – the bar has been set. As that grandee said, Burnham will either prove to be a PM of historic significance or fall on his face.
Let’s see.