He was the loveliest of men who only ever wanted for me what I wanted for me. He was stupidly proud of even my most forgettable successes. I still see him in my dreams, cheering me on.
He’d almost certainly be embarrassed, but secretly pleased, to find himself in the first paragraph. But that’s enough about my father issues. Time now to talk about Andy Burnham’s.
In his emotional and gamechanging leader’s speech on Tuesday – I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to have a politician other than Nigel Farage say exactly what he thinks and believes – Andy told us he wanted to build the country his father would have wanted. It was almost a debt of honour. Burnham was very precise.
This wasn’t the country he wanted to build. It was the one his dad had wanted. Andy was merely a conduit, channelling Roy, who died earlier this month.
So come Wednesday morning, on the traditional post-speech media round, the BBC’s Nick Robinson had clearly designated himself a latter-day Sigmund Freud for Burnham’s Today programme interview. You get the picture: Andy on the couch, Nick sitting just behind his right shoulder, firmly out of view. Never let the therapist get in the way of the subconscious.
Only Robinson can’t take the silences. Some analysts pride themselves on a 50-minute session where nothing is said. That’s when the real psychotherapeutic work gets done.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
