I am not a big fan of Andy Burnham. That might seem a strange thing to say given that I am a member of Mainstream, the pro-Burnham group within Labour.
Burnham is an astute politician. His municipal socialism is not far from my own instincts and, unlike many politicians, he has experience of life outside Westminster. As Mayor of Greater Manchester he has shown that it is possible to pursue centre-left policies while remaining pro-growth and maintaining good relationships with business.
My reservations are more personal. Burnham was a junior minister at the Department of Health when I was an NHS Chief Executive. During a major restructuring of the NHS he had a tendency to involve himself in political manoeuvring that often made an already difficult process harder. It taught me that he is a highly political operator. Admirers see that as a strength. Critics see it as game-playing. Both are probably right.
It also explains why parts of the Labour Party remain wary of him. Many people have been on the receiving end of Burnham’s political skills before.
In many ways he is the opposite of Keir Starmer. Starmer is not a traditional political operator. He did not spend decades building a faction or cultivating a loyal network of MPs. There is no such thing as a Starmerite in the way there were Blairites, Bennites or Corbynites. Political authority is built over years, sometimes decades, and Starmer arrived in politics too late to build that sort of personal power base.
That helps explain why his position can feel surprisingly fragile despite winning a landslide election and commanding a huge parliamentary majority. He has often seemed reluctant to exercise power inside his own party.
Everyone remembers Lord Acton’s observation that “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Fewer remember his warning that power which is not exercised eventually withers.
That is Starmer’s problem.
Yet it would be wrong to conclude that his government has been a failure.
The economy is performing better than many expected. Inflation has fallen. Investment is rising. Real wages have begun to recover. Immigration and small boat crossings have fallen from their peaks. None of this has transformed public opinion, but neither does it fit the picture of a government in collapse.
That is why Burnham’s emergence matters.
If he is positioning himself as Starmer’s successor, he is not doing so because Labour is presiding over an economic disaster. He is doing so because Labour remains politically vulnerable despite a record that is stronger than its poll ratings suggest. Starmer has done the hard years. Burnham is political enough to see that as the moment to seize the crown.
Why Labour Remains Unpopular
The paradox of modern British politics is that economic indicators can improve while voters continue to feel dissatisfied.
Part of this reflects the scale of the damage inherited from the previous government. Fourteen years of weak growth, deteriorating public services and political instability cannot be reversed in two years.
Part of it reflects distribution. The gains and losses of recent decades have not been shared equally. Rising house prices and policies such as the triple lock created substantial gains for some groups while younger workers and renters often struggled to get on the housing ladder. Even where the economy improves overall, people judge governments by their own circumstances.
There is also a deeper cultural anxiety running through British politics.
Many of the privileges historically associated with class, birth, race and geography have gradually weakened. This process has been under way for decades. A more diverse and meritocratic society creates opportunities for many people, but it also creates uncertainty for others who feel that their social position is becoming less secure.
The result is a politics increasingly shaped by status anxiety as much as economics.
That helps explain why debates about immigration, identity and social change have become so emotionally charged. These arguments are rarely just about policy. They are often arguments about belonging, recognition and fear of decline.
Starmer has become a particular target for some sections of the traditional and social media. His role as Director of Public Prosecutions during the Leveson era made him unpopular with parts of the press, while attempts to regulate social media platforms have made him a convenient villain for others.
Any successor would face the same pressures. The removal of Starmer is a big victory of foreign media owners and social media bosses.
Whether Burnham ultimately becomes Prime Minister remains to be seen. But if he does, he will discover that changing the occupant of Number 10 is easier than changing the forces that have made governing so difficult, particularly because those forces will hammer home the message that he isn’t a legitimate PM and there needs to be another General Election.
Reform’s Problem
The by-election result should also concern Reform.
The party’s local election performance was respectable but not transformational. Their parliamentary by-election record remains mixed, and they are still some distance from demonstrating the broad coalition required to form a government. They need to look like plausible winners to keep the money flowing in from foreign based billionaires.
There is no single explanation for their lack of success.
Competition on the right is part of the story. Groups such as Restore seek to occupy an even more radical position, forcing Reform into an increasingly difficult balancing act. As immigration and small boat crossings become less dominant issues, parts of the right have adopted ever more extreme rhetoric in an attempt to maintain momentum.
That may energise activists, but it risks alienating more moderate voters.
Reform also faces a challenge created by its own success online. Much of the party’s campaigning depends upon social media. The danger is that online enthusiasm does not always translate into votes. Worse still, many voters now encounter Reform supporters primarily online, where the tone can often be aggressive, conspiratorial or overtly racist.
Nigel Farage himself is usually careful with his language. Many of his online supporters are not.
That creates a dilemma. The same online ecosystem that energises Reform’s core supporters may also repel the wider electorate the party needs if it wants to win power.
Candidate quality remains another weakness. In local elections poor candidates can slip through unnoticed. By-elections bring much greater scrutiny. Reform often appears to select candidates who appeal strongly to activists but struggle to connect with ordinary voters.
Labour made a similar mistake during the Corbyn years, selecting candidates popular with online supporters but less successful with the broader electorate.
The Greens
The Greens remain one of the most interesting stories in British politics.
For much of the last decade tactical voting has largely flowed in one direction. Labour supporters were often willing to vote Green, while Green supporters were less willing to return the favour.
There are several reasons for this. Not all Green voters are left-wing. Some are environmentally conscious conservatives. Others are Corbynite former Labour supporters hostile to current and future labour leaders.
Yet there are signs that this relationship may be changing.
Some Green voters clearly see Burnham differently from Starmer. Supporting a Burnham-led Labour Party against Reform may feel easier than supporting Starmer’s government.
The question is whether that sentiment would survive a general election. Historically, tactical cooperation on the left becomes harder once Labour is actually in power.
The Conservatives
The Conservatives remain in deep trouble.
Their poor performance in recent by-elections has often been overshadowed by events elsewhere, but the underlying trend is bleak. Kemi Badenoch appears to have stabilised the party internally, yet voters still seem unclear about what the Conservatives now stand for, or even what Conservatism means any more.
The party faces the mirror image of Labour’s relationship with the Greens.
Conservative voters appear willing to lend support to Reform in order to defeat Labour. Reform voters show little interest in returning the favour.
As Reform and Restore move further to the right, the Conservatives have an opportunity to define themselves against both parties. Instead they continue to blur the distinction.
Even among Conservative members there often seems to be uncertainty about what the party’s purpose now is.
Why Politics Cannot Solve Everything
The temptation after every election or by-election is to believe that changing leaders will solve deeper problems.
It rarely does. Burnham may well prove a more effective communicator than Starmer. He may connect better with voters. He may eventually become Labour leader and Prime Minister.
But he will inherit many of the same constraints.
Financial markets still matter. The economic damage caused by the Truss experiment has not disappeared. Any government must balance demands for higher spending against the need to maintain credibility. We are heavily in debt despite a decade of austerity. We are uncompetitive, and business investment is too low. Supposed business friendly measures by 14 years of Conservative Chancellors made things worse not better. The biggest social media company based in the UK is Only Fans.
More importantly, some problems cannot be solved by governments at all.
Across large parts of Britain, civil society has weakened dramatically. Community organisations have disappeared. Churches, clubs, societies and voluntary groups have declined. People are more isolated than they once were.
Where strong communities survive, people retain the capacity to improve the places where they live. Where they do not, frustration accumulates and politics becomes a substitute for community.
Loneliness, fragmentation and social media have filled the vacuum.
This is why so many voters feel disappointed. They voted for change and expected politics to transform their lives. But many of the institutions that once gave people meaning, belonging and influence existed outside government.
A Prime Minister can help create the conditions for renewal. Burnham’s record on devolution suggests he understands that. But governments cannot rebuild civil society on their own.
Ultimately, the health of a country depends not just on what happens in Westminster, but on what happens in neighbourhoods, workplaces, clubs, community centres and voluntary organisations.
Politics matters.
But it is not enough.
