His ambition is big enough to see from space as he promises the “biggest change to Britain in 40 years”. Andy Burnham pledges what no prime minister until now has dared to, breaking the long spell of Thatcherism. Her sham monopoly markets in public services have crashed.
The chancellor, John Healey, promises a “new age of industrialisation”, breaking with her era of industrial desertification. The social care system she blew into disconnected privatised fragments will become a national care service. Something new is waiting to be born.
Only a year ago, the Labour party was on its knees in despair, thunderstruck to find Nigel Farage ruling the roost so soon after its landslide win, with Reform UK 12 percentage points ahead of Labour’s dismal 22%. Farage was the most popular leader, with a 30% favourability rating, compared with Keir Starmer’s -71%. When Burnham came to Liverpool last year he had no seat, no prospect of a challenge and a numbskull national executive committee bent on barring him, his charisma wasted.
Now here he is in the middle of a mini-bounce, the only leader with a positive score, while Farage has slid down the scale to -30%. Polls show that Labour could win the next election, with the left bloc outscoring the right, though without an overall majority. Relish every second of this period.
Burnham has three precious years, rightly not risked in a needless election, and time enough to start his 40-year revolution. With the wind in his sails, he has the wit, agility, experience and ruthlessness of leadership, alongside his skill of being able to talk of dilemmas ahead without plunging everyone into gloom. Odysseus-like, he needs wax in his ears to block the sound of his enemies bellowing on Elon Musk’s X that he will never prove himself a real man, a true leader, until he inflicts severe pain – preferably on the weakest.
He says he won’t make “crude cuts”. The way to bring down welfare bills is by helping the young out of benefits. Those who thought Healey would be the undertaker chancellor, countering Pollyanna Burnham with graveyard gloom, heard optimism in his speech on Monday instead.
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