Is this the sketch my father would have wanted? Not something I have previously given much thought to. He died 15 years before I even started this job. But my guess is that it is. 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 was not his vision. 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. Apparently. A nice earner if you can get it.
There was no time to bother with the niceties. Nick specialises more in speed therapy. Done and dusted inside 20 minutes. From nought to catharsis. There was no “How are you feeling? Is there anything you need to talk about today?” Instead, he cut straight to the chase. And why not? Everyone knows that all patients are merely mainlining their parents. Everything can be traced back to childhood.
Andy clearly doesn’t hold with the Philip Larkin “They fuck you up” doctrine. He only got good stuff from his dad. Or maybe the good stuff is all that he cares to remember. Siggy Robbo missed a trick there. Surely your father would be telling you not to be so nostalgic, he said, but Burnham was adamant. Roy would have stuck to his roots of quiet patriotism. Nick tried another tack. The funeral was taking place on Friday. Was he on an emotional rollercoaster? Andy conceded that he could be. But rollercoasters were his happy place.
This could be habit-forming. Maybe it’s an approach we should take with all our party leaders. Rather than seeing them as players on a global stage with the capacity to make our lives infinitely worse, we should be more understanding. Treat them as patients in need of treatment. After all, you’ve surely got to be a dangerously unbalanced narcissist to even imagine you can run a country. Desire for office should act as a disqualification on health grounds. Some politicians would probably get an automatic upgrade from narcissist to sociopath. Donald Trump and Boris Johnson come immediately to mind.
Think also of Keir Starmer, Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch. Keir clearly had a tricky relationship with his dad. One where there was a lot that went unsaid. So maybe we shouldn’t blame him for never being able to articulate what he felt. Then there’s Nige. Has he inherited a hatred for all immigrants, or is he reacting against his parents? Maybe they took in refugees and forced the seven-year-old Nige to play with them against his will. And where did he get his pathological need for money, no matter how questionable the source? Did his parents squander his inheritance on gifts to charity? As for Kemi, where to start? I’ve never seen a politician so full of loathing. Could that be down to a Larkin-like childhood?
With the therapy over, Siggy briefly turned to the substance of the speech. All the big-ticket policies were for after the next election. What was going to happen in the next three years? Andy shrugged. He was a straight-talking guy. There wasn’t much he could do. Energy bills were going up faster than he could offer rebates. He couldn’t stop the wars around the world. The cost of debt was out of his hands. The Tories could say they would cut welfare, but nothing much would change. We needed to be patient. Things would get better. Just so long as Labour won in 2029.
Social care, the triple lock, Brexit and electoral reform. These were the real engines that would transform the country and reconnect voters with politics. Instruments of trust. How that would happen would be for others to decide. Single market, customs union, rejoin. All were on the table. Let’s just hope the far right haven’t taken over the EU by the time it happens. A national care service. Not ideal – some people would still lose their homes – but better than what was currently on offer. Just don’t forget: Andy was merely a channel of peace. In a rare turnabout, Nick thanked Burnham for the therapy session. The bank transfer would follow.
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Over in the main hall, the conference proper was dying on its arse. You could hear the exhibition stands being dismantled as Yvette Cooper, Lucy Powell and others made the last few speeches to polite applause. We ended as all Labour conferences ended – with renditions of The Red Flag and Jerusalem – and then it was a dash for the exits. Not that there was a scrum. Most people had already left.
But it was always going to be this way when the main event had taken place the previous afternoon. This had been the Andy Burnham show. And delegates couldn’t have been happier. The Labour party had rediscovered its soul. Its belief. A leader who could go toe-to-toe with the other parties. Maybe this was also the sketch that Andy Burnham’s father would have wanted.
