An Australian observer has a warning for Britain’s new PM. Will Andy Burnham listen?
London: The first thing Andy Burnham did after becoming Britain’s new prime minister was admit failure. This was an honest and necessary step because Britain has faced so many failures in the last decade. But it has also raised expectations that the new leader can halt the country’s dismal decline. And so far there’s no sign he has a solid plan to do so.
In his opening speech at Downing Street immediately after meeting King Charles, he said it was a moment for “reflection and new decision” about the future. “My generation of politicians need to step up our game,” he said. He admitted leaders in Britain were not good enough, adding: “We will be.”
A new leader always tries to break away from the past and promise a better future, so Burnham essentially stuck to that formula. At least he acknowledged that Britain was suffering from a generational failure.
Burnham is an extremely good politician. Just a month after returning to Parliament, he moved into the prime minister’s official residence, 10 Downing Street. It defeated the right-wing UK Reform Party in the by-election. He was elected leader of the Labor Party unopposed. His predecessor, Keir Starmer, resigned because his defeat was clear.
This required ruthless political skill. Burnham and her allies worked for at least a year to ensure that every mistake Starmer made (and there were many) would lead to a leadership coup. Now their moment has finally arrived. Do they really know how to use their power to change the fate of Britain?
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch mocks Burnham for promising so much. “I found Andy to be a good guy,” he said Monday. “But Britain needs a leader who can make tough decisions, not a people-pleaser.”
Right-wing Reform Britain’s populist leader Nigel Farage has an influential line on Burnham’s attempts to appeal to both the left and the right. “I must say I find all this completely pointless,” Farage told a conservative conference last Friday. “He is the great chameleon of British politics, capable of being all things to all people.”
In reality, Reformation does not have a great policy plan. He just has one strong complaint. “We’re going down the drain,” Farage said. “Britain is devastated. We have to recognize that fact, we have to acknowledge the extent of the disease and until we do that you will never be able to put the right treatments in place.”
This message resonates because people can feel the decline around them; in dreary city squares with empty shops, in the number of unemployed youth, in closed industries, in knife crime on the streets, in the wait for healthcare and in low economic growth.
‘People believe in a basic bargain. Work hard, play by the rules, get an education; You and your children can have a better life. ‘Everywhere in the developed world people think the bargain has broken down.’
Lynton Crosby, political analyst
But the harshest message came from Australian observer Lynton Crosby, who joined the debate on Monday with a warning. He is a former adviser to Liberal governments in Australia, including John Howard, for many years. As chairman of CT Group, he is also a former advisor to Conservative governments in Britain.
“What voters want is not ideology, but substantive delivery and change.” he wrote Times on Monday. Crosby presented a view that went against conventional wisdom in London. He said Starmer could survive and possibly win the next election if Labor gathered its courage and worked harder in line with what voters wanted.
“The most powerful influencer on how people vote is a simple question: What does this mean for me and my life?” he wrote.
“People believe in a basic bargain. Work hard, play by the rules, get an education, and you and your children can have a better life, a home of your own, and a rising standard of living. All over the developed world, people think the bargain is broken.
“A prime minister who grasped that and ran it ruthlessly would have something real to offer. “Starmer’s path was there.
“Instead, Labor has become discouraged. Instead of maintaining a steady, long-term course, the party has allowed itself to be governed by the polls, instead of addressing core values and concerns driven by the poll; it has reacted to every fluctuation rather than doing the patient work of government.”
Crosby warned Labor and Burnham that changing the leader would solve nothing if the party did not understand the national problems it needed to solve and keep some economic fundamentals “stable”.
“Burnham is drifting toward a contradictory program of land taxes, wealth taxes, public ownership of utilities, fiscal discipline, and a bigger budget,” Crosby wrote.
“But to govern is to choose. A leader without rivals and without rebellion has a rare opportunity in politics: the ability to choose a credible plan, govern it, and deliver the growth this country needs. But if he fails to learn the lessons of his predecessors, he will undoubtedly share their fate.”
Burnham may not want to take Crosby’s advice, but he should. Everyone sees that the new prime minister is trying to appeal to both the right and the left with his vague speeches. He promises to pay more attention to welfare, help workers with tax cuts, spend more on services, nationalize industry, stick to fiscal rules and spend more on defense.
The sad truth is that it has very little space to do any of this. The country’s net public debt is £2.9 trillion ($5.6 trillion), or about 95 percent of annual economic output.
This means Government is spending £110bn on debt interest this yearThis accounts for approximately 8 percent of all public spending and is among the highest levels in the last fifty years. Britain is not just fragmented. Broken.
That’s why Burnham vowed to abide by the “fiscal rules” in the budget. He has no choice. If he and new Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey stumble on fiscal policy, his government will come under attack from bond markets.
Burnham offered hope on her first day and promised help with living expenses on her second. But no one can be sure how and whether their ideas will work. It will yet be tested with tough choices.
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David Crowe is the European correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect with: X or email.
