Is Andy Burnham already being treated like he’s Prime Minister?
New polling suggests Andy Burnham, if his scheme to return to Parliament goes to plan, will easily oust Keir Starmer in any leadership challenge. But this is not a done deal. Are some quarters getting ahead of themselves?
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What’s the story?
They say that the only certainties in life are death and taxes – but judging by opinion polls, we may be able to add Andy Burnham's time as Prime Minister to that short list.
New polling from YouGov puts Burnham far ahead of Keir Starmer among Labour members on how they would vote for a new party leader, with other contenders Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting and Ed Miliband barely getting a look-in.
The numbers also reveal 74% of members believe Labour would win the next general election with Burnham as leader, while just 28% believe Starmer can steer the party to a second election win.
“It almost feels like that period after an American election, when you have an incoming president and you have an outgoing president,” says Lewis Goodall.
“It's this extraordinary sort of constitutional period that we wouldn't normally have.”
Burnham is not an MP, but he will stand in an upcoming by-election in Makerfield, Manchester, and if he wins will be able to launch a formal challenge against Starmer’s leadership.
Already, Lewis adds, the UK press is treating Burnham as an incoming Prime Minister, and conversation of this occurrence appears to have had a positive impact on the UK’s financial markets.
But Emily Maitlis says she is sensing a growing “queasiness” among people in the UK over the speed at which this is happening, with many feeling Burnham’s ascension has been “created from nowhere” and is now “leaping” into reality.
The big challenge for Burnham
Andy Burnham has proven popular in his role as Mayor of Greater Manchester, but the responsibilities and pressures of being an MP – let alone Prime Minister – are very different.
Lewis says his success so far has been as a “sectional” politician, and Burnham must now prove himself able to bring what has worked at a local level to the national field.
“It's quite easy in Britain being a sectional politician – who you're fighting for is very clearly defined, and you have an enemy,” he says.
“Anything that goes wrong, you can just go 'bloody hell, those down in Westminster, they just don't understand us'."
Burnham has already agreed, as Starmer has, to remain within the Labour government’s fiscal rules, which Lewis says leaves him locked into a financial straitjacket.
But there are other ways in which he may be different and bring change, such as the redistribution of power, along with wealth, which may bring back some of the freedom so many people in the UK currently feel they are lacking in their lives.
“If he does get to a place of him being Prime Minister, Burnham won't have 'them and us', he'll have all of us,” Emily says.
“He will have to decide who to put taxes on, whose welfare bill to cut, and somebody's going to hate you at the end of that. It doesn't go for free.”
Is there a growing “queasiness” in Brits in this situation?
But while political commentators, and indeed financial markets, may be buzzing at the prospect of a major refresh at the top of UK politics, there’s that worry Emily sense growing among listeners to The News Agents, and more generally among Brits.
“We're leaping into the dark again, likely introducing more political instability, more economic depression,” she says.
“So we're on this sort of slightly hungry, voracious cycle where we just keep on breaking things in the middle.”
But Lewis says if Labour wants any chance to continue in power, and stand a chance of making it to the next general election, Starmer has to go.
“If the voters wanted Starmer to continue in office, they would vote for his party, and they're not,” he says.
Labour lost almost 1,500 councillor seats in recent local elections.
“If voters wanted Starmer to continue in office, they would give him higher approval ratings. They don’t.”
He believes Burnham offers something Starmer never could.
“It's been rare in recent politics to just have a politician, a leader of a political party, who both communicates fluently and casually, maybe a bit blokeishly,” Lewis says.
“Burnham is both charismatic, but not politically intense,”
Emily says he seems like a man who knows who he is and what he wants – and suggests hope is there that he could bring this to the role of Prime Minister.
“Burnham definitely has a sense of where his home is, what he likes,” she says.
“It is a sense of being at home in his skin.”