Andy Burnham’s manoeuvres have rattled Keir Starmer. Speaking to ITV News this evening, for the first time since the New Statesman’s profile of Burnham shed light on the Manchester Mayor’s plans for Britain, Starmer said: “I’m not going to get drawn into commenting on the Mayor’s ambitions”.
Speculation has mounted over whether a Burnham challenge is imminent. And the Mayor’s comments on the bond market have raised eyebrows across Westminster. “We’ve got to go beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets,” Burnham said. Over the past 24 hours, Downing St insiders have poured cold water on this idea, comparing a Burnham administration to Liz Truss’s fateful time at Number 10.
In his interview with ITV, Starmer hammered that comparison. “I do want to be really clear about our fiscal rules,” the Prime Minister said, “because economic stability is the foundational stone of this government.”
Starmer alluded to Truss’s mini budget. “Liz Truss showed what happens if you abandon fiscal rules,” Starmer said, “now in her case she did that for tax cuts. But the same would happen if it was spending.” He added: “We saw what happened to working people three years ago, the infliction of harm on them. I’m not prepared to let a Labour government ever inflict that harm on working people.”
Though Starmer hesitated to draw the comparison explicitly – painting Burnham as Labour’s Truss – his signposting of the mini-budget’s three-year anniversary is significant. He is clearly keen to paint “Burnhamism”, with its increased public spending and ramped up public ownership, as economically naive and disastrous.
This fiscal attack line may not hold. The government is clearly very concerned about spooking the bond market; the protection of Rachel Reeves in this month’s reshuffle was clearly intended to prevent any spikes. But Starmer’s unpopularity isn’t about his fiscal credibility. It is about his want of a vision – something which Burnham, with his new philosophy of “Manchesterism” – certainly does not lack.
[Further reading: Andy Burnham versus the bond market]
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