Andy Burnham is the first influencer prime minister

Politics has become showbusiness because showbusiness has gone bust

Andy Burnham. Oasis. Vinyl. Will taping the top 40 be the next thing to stage a comeback? When was the last time you checked the charts? The current No 1 (“Rein Me In” by Sam Fender and Olivia Dean) is notable for two reasons: first, it’s been top of the pops for a record-breaking 20 weeks, and second, it’s entirely possible you haven’t heard it – or clocked its chart-breaking achievement. A song can be at number one for the equivalent of 2.9 Liz Trusses, and it is utterly escapable. Almost inevitably so.

Dominance no longer means ubiquity – and that has an impact on our politics. When people ask “Why is politics so crazy these days?” it’s because so little else is. Self-selecting streaming and algorithms mean we now rarely have common music, film or TV. So the one thing that holds the nation together is news. Most weeknights the news has the biggest audience on BBC One. This magazine survives, where the NME or Total Film do not.

Politics has become showbusiness because showbusiness has gone bust. According to YouGov, 57 per cent of the country have heard of Robert Jenrick, a former middle-ranking cabinet minister who now sits in a party of seven MPs. By contrast, only 53 per cent have heard of Olivia Dean. That’s like going back 20 years and finding more people have heard of Hazel Blears than Leona Lewis. If number ones matter less, the occupant of No 10 matters more. Andy Burnham is the first influencer prime minister. Famous for being famous, at least outside Manchester. He was propelled into No 10 on a carefully curated wardrobe, Instagram feed and backstory.

“Every flagstone of this town bears our prints.” No, that’s not a line from a Burnham speech. It’s a lyric from “Rein Me In”.

Harold Wilson’s gut instinct

There was a time when politicians could walk about largely undisturbed, apart from by upstart reporters. John Simpson, now the BBC’s world affairs editor, was answering questions from 5 Live listeners when he told me about his first day as a reporter, despatched to meet Harold Wilson as rumours swirled that he was about to call a general election. “ Nobody was doing anything. They were just smiling at him and I thought, well, somebody’s got to bloody ask this. So I stepped forward with my microphone. I got as far as, ‘Excuse me, Prime…’ when he gave me a real hard punch in the stomach with his left hand, and with his right hand he tried to wrestle the microphone out of my hand. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t speak because, you know, he might not have been a fantastic prime minister, but he did have quite a good left hook.”

The imitation game

The narrowing monoculture also plays out at the Edinburgh Fringe, which comes round again, and so does my Fomo. It’s been 21 years since I went with my mates Will and Lewis in our sketch group Big Day Out, and got good reviews and sold out. And then got proper jobs and girlfriends and the years ticked by. Although I’ve done four solo stand-up tours since, I’ve never had the time/energy/liver capacity to go back.

Matt Forde, the brilliant comedian and impressionist, spoke to me live from Scotland’s capital about his excitement at having to write a whole new show about the new government. And he’s spotted a verbal tic that helps his impersonation of the incoming PM. Matt notes that Burnham likes to ask himself questions, eg: “I think we need to deal with injustice, don’t we? And I think parts of this country are really unfair, aren’t they? And that can sound quite open-minded, can’t it? But it can also sound quite unsure as well, can’t it? It’s quite habit-forming as well, isn’t it? Once you do it, you can’t stop, can you?” So subtle, but, once you notice it, impossible to ignore.

Great eider for a segment

Some time ago, when all the talk was of “lame duck” prime ministers, I spoke to Tim Jones, from Sally’s Duck Rescue, for his advice on how to revive a specimen on its last legs: “Eat your peas. Peas contain niacin. Niacin helps lame ducks. So if they had a handful of frozen peas, you never know. We might actually have a little bit of government going on.” From that has emerged a regular feature, “What the Duck?”, in which listeners share duck-related news. My favourite recent story was from Lucyl Harrison, from Hempton, Norfolk, where the village pond had dried up. She co-opted the community into using paddling pools, oven trays and saucepans to refill it. Animals are another thing that can still bring us together. We are a nation obsessed with politics and pets.

Matt Chorley presents the afternoon politics show weekdays from 2pm on BBC Radio 5 Live. Andrew Marr is away

[Further reading: Can Andy Burnham move fast enough for voters?]