Below is a speech incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham could give – one that would unite the country around a shared vision of prosperity. Prosperity for All My fellow citizens, Today, as I stand before you as your Prime Minister, I want to cut through the political noise and give you the unvarnished truth about […]
In Gordium, the capital of Phrygia, stood an oxcart, its yoke connected to the pole by a knot of cornel bark so intricate that no one could find where it began or ended. An oracle promised that whoever undid it would rule all Asia. For generations, clever men picked at it, theorised, and organised what […]
For a nation of Nimbys, Britain – or at least London – is remarkably fond of its skyscrapers. We love them so much we give them cutesy diminutives like ‘The Gherkin’, ‘The Cheesegrater’ and the ‘Walkie Talkie’. We boast about vistas from which you can see them, marketing properties for their ‘stunning view of The […]
Barring some form of constitutional crisis, Andy Burnham will become Prime Minister. We do not even know who his new Chancellor will be, let alone what their policies and priorities are. However, whoever gets the top job at 1 Horse Guards Road, they should make tax reform their top priority if they want to bring […]
Across the UK, millions of people rely on the railways to travel. From 2024 to 2025, there were 1.7 billion passenger rail journeys, of which 1.08 billion were completed within a single region. And yet all too often, local rail has been neglected, with funding prioritised for London and the South East. As a result […]
Most of those who, despite all discouragement, continue to invest in the UK have a sense of foreboding over an Andy Burnham premiership. We know that he will try to reconcile two irreconcilables. First, he will offer bold, exciting change from the uninspiring couple of years under Keir Starmer. Second, he will resist holding an […]
There was as much doubt about Labour’s leadership nominations as there was at the Accession Council in September 2022. Like the Privy Counsellors before them, Labour MPs have declared Andy Burnham leader with ‘one voice and consent of tongue and heart’. Although he won’t officially be declared Labour’s new leader until July 17, by securing […]
Andy Burnham is not a forward-looking man. His musical interests stop at around 1998, his approach to industry is straight out of the 1970s and his favourite football team hasn’t won a trophy for over thirty years. It’s little surprise then that he takes a dim view of the ongoing tech revolution. It was reported […]
For many people, there is a brilliant piece of music or an inspiring novel that changes their life. For a freak like me, it was obviously a documentary. And of course it was a documentary about Margaret Thatcher. Released just after she died, ‘Margaret, Death of A Revolutionary’ set me on the path of believing […]
Here it comes again. Whoever Andy Burnham chooses to be his Chancellor of the Exchequer will face the same challenge as all their predecessors since Gordon Brown: producing ‘fiscal rules’ to reassure the City they will be prudent holders of the nation’s credit card. With Britain’s national debt higher than it’s been for decades, and […]
Andy Burnham’s Manc-a-Lago plan to escape the Westminster bubble by shipping bits of No.10 to the North is fated to fizzle out: the wrong answer to a problem misdiagnosed. The idea seems to be that physical proximity will make people feel the heart of government better understands them, while the new office will be full […]
‘It is time for Whitehall to accept that growth cannot be ordered from the top down,’ Andy Burnham said in his first major speech since returning to Parliament. ‘Instead, it can only be nurtured from the bottom up.’ He is right. The man about to enter Downing Street has seen what much of his party […]
It received less media attention than many of his more eye-catching announcements, but yesterday Andy Burnham stated that under his premiership, British firms would be favoured for government contracts. While this is well meaning, outside a narrow set of circumstances such as issues relating to national security, this would be a costly mistake. First, it […]
For those of us old enough to remember Andy Burnham as a not-especially-effective member of Gordon Brown’s Cabinet in the late 2000s, it is sometimes difficult to see what qualities have made some sections of the Parliamentary Labour Party speak of him as if he were a Merseyside Aragorn. To them, after a self-imposed exile, […]
Andy Burnham said this morning how seriously he takes Alan Milburn’s review of youth unemployment. If that’s true, he should pay close attention to one of its most important findings: the cost of employment is standing in the way of businesses hiring young people. Since Labour came to power they have put up the cost […]
In a recent speech, Andy Burnham, Makerfield’s new MP and likely our next PM, said he would end ‘trickle-down’ economics. What on earth was he talking about? The Left often accuses the Right – and particularly the last Conservative government – of practising this voodoo art form. Supposedly, right-wingers give tax breaks to the ‘rich’ […]
Since Andy Burnham became the Mayor of Manchester in 2017, the term Manchesterism has taken on a new meaning. To him, it stands for the expansion of the public sector and a managerial state. Now, with Keir Starmer on the brink of resignation and Burnham’s Makerfield by-election win clearing his path to Westminster, Britain may […]
‘I accept that over the last year, performance at South Western Railway has not been up to scratch…we will leave no stone unturned in making sure that his constituents have a better travel experience in future,’ pledged the Transport Secretary in a Commons answer earlier this month. Heidi Alexander had been asked by the Lib […]
Some are saying they don’t know what Andy Burnham’s big ideas are. They don’t know what he will try to achieve when he becomes prime minister. On GB News earlier this week, Boris Johnson described Burnham as a ‘mascaraed Mancunian mystery’. It is a peculiar concern. Burnham’s ideology seems to me no harder to identify […]
Keir Starmer is now an empty-vessel Prime Minister, nominally in office but visibly out of power. His fall from grace after Labour’s emphatic win almost two years ago brings an end to stage one of a government in collapse. Starmer has gone from weak leader to lame duck in a matter of days, and Andy […]
When Andy Burnham enters No10 in weeks the pressure to implement new policy will be massive. The advisers who hold his ear will try to act fast, thinking that they have learnt the lesson from Starmer’s processology. Labour MPs have made their desire for ‘big change’ known for months but have failed to articulate it […]
The UK has the lowest business investment of any G7 country. The last time its business investment stood above the G7 median as a proportion of GDP, John Major was Prime Minister. The Labour government’s instinct, both in its manifesto and in practice, reflects the old Keynesian mindset that “The duty of ordering the current […]
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