21 May 2010

Andy Burnham’s dad is upset with me

He says the former health secretary has a different background from the Miliband bros and Balls.

In my G2 piece on the Labour leadership race, I wrote:

So far the contest has resembled a City boardroom. Two Eds. Two brothers. Plus Andy Burnham. All of them white, male, fortysomething, Oxbridge graduates.

Andy Burnham‘s father, Roy, has been in touch this morning to tell me he “is not happy” and is “annoyed” that I didn’t make it clear to the readers that his son, the former health secretary and MP for Leigh, did indeed graduate from Cambridge (and is, of course, white, male and 40-plus) but is actually from a working-class background, state-school-educated and northern.

I’m happy to make that clarification and apologise to Roy if I offended him. I still stand by my point, however, that the Labour leadership race looked like a City boardroom prior to the black, female MP Diane Abbott declaring her candidacy.

Nonetheless, I think it’s rather sweet that Burnham Sr is so protective of Burnham Jr, who could, in theory, be this country’s next prime minister. Speaking on the phone with me, Roy said the family had working-class and socialist roots, and reminded me that he is a former telephone engineer (his wife, Andy’s mother, is a former telephone operator).

I asked him where he’d place his son on the political spectrum, to which he replied: “To the left of New Labour.” Intriguing. I also asked him who he thought Andy’s main rival for the leadership was, to which Roy replied, without hesitation: “David Miliband. The front-runner. But with a four-month contest anything can happen. It’s a long time.”