The new Prime Minister prepared for his first appearance in the Commons on 1 September by going for a run. The hot damp breath of summer lingered among the trees of St James’ Park, whispering memories of the Summer of Andy. The triumphant arrival in Downing Street; the hilarious internet video in which he and his new Chancellor, John Healey, pretended to like pork scratchings; the sweet summer vibes of reducing VAT on energy bills and capping bus fares at £2 and making diplomats pretend to be impressed as he massacred the Smiths’ “Rusholme Ruffians” on the guitar. But the leaves were already falling, as were the prices of 30-year government bonds. September had arrived, and Andy Burnham, who once promised to pop the Westminster bubble from outside, was going to have to go back to parliament.
His opposite number, Kemi Badenoch, had prepared by reshuffling her shadow cabinet. She had sacked Priti Patel, an uncharacteristically crowd-pleasing decision with worrying implications for Labour. Was Badenoch getting better at politics? Perhaps not: she also used the reshuffle to appoint a new shadow chancellor, Andrew Griffith, who in September 2022 was appointed financial secretary to the Treasury by the then prime minister, Liz Truss. Griffith had previously been the chairman of the takeaway delivery company Just Eat, but as one of Truss’s top financial experts he helped to write a mini-Budget that was found to contain large chunks of partially reheated Thatcher, and was delivered so carelessly that it led to widespread vomiting in financial markets.
Keir Starmer prepared for the event in a now familiar fashion, by resigning. Almost all of Burnham’s big public appearances in recent weeks have been prefaced by a quick resignation speech from Starmer, and this was no exception: as Burnham geared up to address the Commons for the first time as PM, Starmer announced that he was standing down as an MP. In a statement that was, just by chance, released exactly three hours before Burnham rose to speak, Starmer said he thought it was simply “the right time” (with the implied coda: “To generate some headlines about me, your cruelly deposed leader, before you hear from my traitorous usurper”). Then again, perhaps it was just that Starmer had, like all the other Labour backbenchers, received the invite to the start-of-term drinks and nibbles with Andy in the gardens at No 10, and decided the least awkward response would be to do some more resigning. Anyway, that’s all we’ll hear from Starmer until 28 October, when he’ll announce his departure from the Holborn & St Pancras Tiddlywinks Steering Committee, two hours before the Budget.
Before Burnham arrived, his new Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband, was answering questions on Ukraine, Iran and Nepal, but in lighter moments Miliband also warmed up the MPs as they trickled in. “I was once leader of the opposition, and it’s a hard job,” he said, adding with as smile: “As I proved.”
When Burnham arrived to take his seat he stopped and stood to one side for a few minutes, as if he was reluctant to interrupt Miliband (against whom he ran in 2010) or to rejoin the hooting and braying of the Commons, an environment he has spent the past decade defining himself against. Behind him, his allies Louise Haigh and Lucy Powell pressed forwards impatiently. For a moment, he put a hand on the Speaker’s chair, anchoring himself to the ornate woodwork like a swimmer at the edge of a pool, waiting to push off into deeper water. Badenoch marched past him and sat down immediately.
Burnham began with a tribute to Starmer, who was doubtless watching from home in his Arsenal dressing gown with a bowl of popcorn and the last of the summer’s limoncello. If Burnham had been bothered by Starmer’s resignation, he didn’t show it. He paid tribute to the former PM’s achievements – achievements that might have been built upon if he hadn’t been deposed. Next to Burnham on the front bench, Haigh, the first of Starmer’s ministers to be forced to resign, nodded as slowly as possible. The benches behind him held ministers whose time had passed – Peter Kyle, who had been Starmer’s Secretary of State for Saying Big Things About AI sat next to John McDonnell, who ignored him – MPs whose time was yet to come, and Al Carns.
Burnham told the House he was going to speak about “the direction in which I will lead our country”. It was going to be all about working with other people. He’d been speaking to Ed Davey about social care. He’d been to Cornwall to chat with some other Lib Dems. He would have a chat with Emmanuel Macron the next day when they met to see the Bayeux (“Bayo”, as Burnham pronounced it with apparent satisfaction) Tapestry.
“This is politics done differently,” he said, “problem-solving over point-scoring.” It’s comforting, really, to see the most generic promise in British politics being offered to the public again. To Starmer’s promise of “a politics that treads more lightly on our lives” and Rishi Sunak’s promise “to put your needs above politics”, Burnham added the identical and equally undeliverable promise to stop doing all this dreadful politics.
For a while he looked uncertain in his delivery. He was earnest, but not quite in his stride. He outlined his theory about why Britain’s economy hasn’t grown and what was needed to fix it. He said he wanted to “unlock a feeling of positivity and possibility in every postcode” – which is, let’s face it, a big ask. He spoke of his ambition to “oversee the biggest redistribution this country has seen”, which again, is quite the claim. You can’t really compare giving local government the power to impose an Overnight Visitor Levy to, say, giving women the vote. When he told the House: “I say this with confidence. I do. I do,” it sounded as if he was trying to convince himself. But then the leader of the opposition rose to speak, and he visibly relaxed.
Badenoch began by saying she was “grateful” that Burnham had “finally found time to come to parliament to answer my questions”. Burnham smiled like she’d just upgraded his flight; this was going to be a lot more comfortable than he’d feared. His MPs laughed: does the leader of the opposition not know about recess? Why does she think the Commons has been empty since July? Does she think everyone has been hiding from her? Actually, if you’re Kemi Badenoch, perhaps that does happen. She followed up this insight by declaring: “Mr Speaker, the year is 2026. The year is 2026,” she repeated, over whoops of sarcastic approval. She then warned the PM, who was by this time chuckling happily, that it was her job “to ask him serious questions”. “Go on, then!” called a Labour MP, causing another outbreak of merriment.
When Badenoch wasn’t telling the PM what year it was, she was telling him that running the country would be harder than running Greater Manchester, which is true, but she managed to bungle even this obvious observation by telling him that in Manchester, he had never had to think about national security. Burnham stopped laughing and reminded her that of course he had: the Manchester Arena bombing took place two weeks after he was elected mayor. (His daughter was at the concert.) When Burnham spoke again of the need for a more grown-up politics – “we have to do better, don’t we” – his voice was still soft but he had his glasses off, staring bluntly at the opposition front bench.
[Further reading: Kemi Badenoch bets on an early election]
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This article appears in the 02 Sep 2026 issue of the New Statesman, Meet Generation Screwed
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