If I may, I’d like to talk to you all about Andy Burnham, who began yesterday with an attention-grabbing media round in which he refused to rule out one day running to be leader of the Labour party and finished it with a speech in Stockport about “the Greater Manchester way” (a less tongue-twisting version the “Manchesterism” vision he set out in an interview with the NS back in September, I’m told).
In his speech Burnham announced a £1bn growth plan for his city region. Here are the things which I definitely can’t call it without annoying the Mayor: an alternative programme, a Burnham Budget or a critique of Rachel Reeves.
As Burnham’s team make clear, he has been working on these plans for the best part of ten years. While it wasn’t an “alternative Budget”, the timing of the speech a week before Reeves’ Budget was intentional. In it he called once again for more fiscal devolution to the metro mayors. The Chancellor might grant his wish next week by giving them the power to levy a tourist tax, so he is keeping up the pressure.
“It’s not a critique, it’s just setting out how things can be done differently from Whitehall,” said a source close to Burnham. That applies to both the economics and the politics of yesterday’s speech, e.g. the Labour mayor was introduced by the Liberal Democrat leader of Stockport council.
Yet despite Burnham’s protests about Westminster tittle-tattle and a media obsession with questions over the leadership, it is Labour MPs who sat up and took notice of Burnham yesterday amid the increasing gloom in Westminster. Not least because, in critiquing the Home Secretary’s asylum system reforms as necessary but perhaps a little too harsh in places, he once again positioned himself as a champion of average opinion in the PLP.
With failing confidence in Keir Starmer some, though by no means all, are casting around for what one MP describes as “an obvious successor”.
The will-he, won’t-he is set to continue for a long time as Burnham refuses to rule out having higher ambitions. To the question, are you plotting a leadership challenge, his current answer is a straight no (and obviously so, because he doesn’t even have a parliamentary seat). But the question he is usually asked by journalists – do you want to be leader of the Labour party? – is trickier. Burnham and his allies simply say they don’t know what the future holds and, since he ran twice to be leader and is still relatively young for a politician, it would be disingenuous to give a categorical no. One soft left MP summed it up well: “Honestly, until there’s an actual vacancy for a seat, we are all in Groundhog Day.”
This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here
[Further reading: Andy Burnham on Clive Lewis: “I appreciate the support”]
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