Burnham brings emotional connection and optimism in vibe shift from Starmer | Andy Burnham
When Keir Starmer welcomed NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte outside No 10 on Monday, the clothes fit the moment: dark formal suits, polished leather shoes. Almost 200 miles to the north, when Andy Burnham entered the engine room of the People’s History Museum in Manchester, the atmosphere could not have been more different.
Wearing his signature dark T-shirt and jacket, Burnham could easily be walking down the street. He even started with a joke about his hip-hugging running shorts, after he was photographed going for a jog the morning after announcing his return to parliament, telling the assembled audience that he had bought a new pair, telling them “either do this or change the morality laws”.
But the differences between Starmer and the man who plans to replace him are not just superficial. There are three main distinctions for Labor MPs: the power to communicate, the power to debate and the power to give people hope. They concluded that Starmer was missing from all three.
While Burnham’s speech was heavy on policy mechanics, her team will be hoping that what really gets people registering is the emotional connection she’s trying to make with voters. “’What hope can we have that it will be different this time?’ “If I were a voter right now, this would be the question I would ask,” he said. “Westminster isn’t working for the people and hasn’t been for a very long time. In fact, it’s broken. And as a result, the country isn’t where it needs to be. It’s stuck in a rut and we clearly can’t go on like this.”
Burnham has prepared an argument for what’s gone wrong with the British political system – a system that Starmer has struggled to achieve despite his best efforts – and how he could fix it with a massive devolution of power and resources.
And he sought to strike a note of optimism after criticism that Starmer had not offered enough during his two years in office, focused too much on hard facts and defined Labor as much by what it was against as by what it was for.
“I hope people can start to feel the excitement of the change that I’m setting out today – I hope you can too,” Burnham told her audience. “It promises a new era of possibility for Britain. Possibility for places that haven’t felt it for so long… Let’s give them that feeling, the ability to hope, to desire better.”
Of course, one speech alone cannot change a country, and Labor MPs know that replacing Starmer with a more “spirited” successor gives them one last roll of the dice. However, they also know that this alone will not be enough to change the electoral fate of their party.
However, since it became clear that Burnham would take over, Labor appears to be experiencing a small positive upswing. When More Common Asked Questions Looking at how people would vote for him as the presumptive leader, the party has moved one point ahead of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, seven points behind.
But there’s a long way to go. Burnham’s warmth as a communicator, her ability to express her vision and instill some hope, is why Labor MPs decided to choose her in Downing Street.
Where he remains untested, and won’t until he takes office, is another key area where many MPs think Starmer has failed: his political judgment when faced with decisions only a prime minister can make.
Some are also concerned about whether Burnham has what it takes to carry her radical project through Whitehall and her party and deliver the change she has promised. If it fails, Labour’s last roll of the dice won’t be worth it.
He has not subjected himself to the kind of scrutiny expected of a would-be prime minister since winning the by-election, refusing to take any questions from the media after his speech and not expecting to take over the country until the House of Commons meets for the summer recess.
With all that said, the man from Makerfield, who has a reputation for fighting for ordinary people who have long felt the UK’s political system isn’t working for them, is a big plus on the list as he comes in at number 10.
A glass cabinet at the People’s History Museum displays, among other artefacts, the navy blue workwear utility jacket Burnham wore when she gave a defiant speech against lockdown funding in October 2020.
It went viral, burnishing his reputation as “king of the north” and fueling speculation that he could be a future Labor leader. He is expected to carry his fighting spirit with him to number 10.
