Of all the epithets thrown at a new prime minister, “people-pleaser” bounces off Andy Burnham. After all, the polls have him with a favourability rating of +13, making him the only party leader who scores above zero. His manner as he responded to all 125 of his questioners on his first Commons appearance this week had a warmth and empathy that his predecessor lacked. It’s a natural timbre, a good bedside manner for an uneasy country.
Keir Starmer’s rating as he left office was -36. He was defenestrated precisely because of his unpopularity. That baffled his allies, but his ratings crashed early into an electoral death zone from which no leader returns. His revenge comes in giving Labour a potentially awkward byelection confrontation with Zack Polanski: although, just as Burnham defeated the right in Makerfield, any candidate under his leadership stands a good chance of defeating the Greens in Holborn and St Pancras.
Starmer’s fall began soon after Labour’s landslide victory in July 2024 with his message of foreboding gloom in the Downing Street garden. The country faced an economic and societal “black hole”, he said, adding that “things will get worse before they get better”.
Burnham has avoided that kind of misery, on Tuesday making a promise to “unlock a feeling of positivity and possibility” in every part of the country. And why not? Hope is always better than despair. It has its own elevating power that can stimulate growth, social optimism and investment. Even in the face of coming storms, it’s better by far to have a leader who raises spirits in adversity.
The strongest El Niño on record, exacerbated by the stresses of the climate emergency, will hit the UK with tempestuously alarming weather through to early 2027. Equally alarming was that, even as Burnham spoke, the bond markets set off their own El Niño with their global sell-off raising interest rates across the world, especially on UK debt. Their preference for investing in AI companies over governments may be the wrong bet, amid warnings of this bubble bursting to the devastation of the global economy. And still there is no sign that Donald Trump will end his calamitous war with Iran and free the world from its economic blight.
Burnham, well-seasoned in the ways of politics, is fully armed against the cannonades from right and left. He’s all too familiar with the particular poison of most of the British press, for ever hostile to Labour. But the extra lashings of vitriol suggests the right are alarmed by his popularity. Here’s Tim Stanley, the Telegraph’s parliamentary sketch writer, on Burnham’s first Commons outing: “What a relief! The PM’s a dud. For a horrid moment I thought Labour had found a man who could flog socialism to simpletons, but Our Andy’s debut at the Dispatch Box – billed as make-or-break for the British Left – was met by embarrassed silence.”
Presumably, it reassures Telegraph readers to be fed exaggeration when both Reform UK and the Conservatives are on the slide. Farage is not recovering from the scrutiny over his astounding £5m gift, while the Tories languish even below their 2024 election result, which was their lowest since 1832.
They perk up at Kemi Badenoch becoming a little less unpopular. She is indeed more confident at PMQs, but her negative rating suggests she’s no people-pleaser. She leads her party downwards. My hunch is it’s not terminal: the Tories always resurrect, but only by shape-shifting to catch up with changing times, from which they periodically disconnect. But it won’t happen under her. Burnham is lucky to have an opponent swimming hard against the modern tide. Until the Tories repent, or at least recognise the catastrophic consequences of their Brexit, they won’t revive. Their anti-net zero climate extremism is bizarrely out of tune with a country that has just seen record heatwaves and which, Tory voters included, backs the zero emissions target.
Her “slashing” Britain’s welfare bill may be what people want, but it also acts as a reminder of the sheer cruelty of the Tories’ austerity years. And she is prone to tumbling into her own elephant traps. She thought she had a gotcha when she challenged Burnham as a spendthrift: what had he cut? “Tax is the simple answer,” he said, quick as a flash, citing two tax cuts in his first week.
His summer of goodwill defied Labour’s enemies, who enjoyed little success opposing capping bus fares at £2, scrapping the 5% VAT on energy bills or the creation of No 10 North, all of which were well received by the public. They will hope his pledge to end rough sleeping in England by Christmas fails. When faced with the prison overcrowding crisis, he did the unpopular thing and released prisoners. Unwelcome public advice from friends, including his former economic adviser Jim O’Neill, warning he must make cuts or tax rises has been picked up with glee by Badenoch. But oddly, she failed to mention his solution: end the ruinous triple lock on pensions.
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Many people are pleased that he will set about capping political donations. Stella Creasy withdrew her strongly backed amendment to the representation of the people bill calling for a £500,000 cap, signalling her confidence in Burnham’s promised taskforce to draw up a plan. That’s a people-pleaser for a public disgusted with the squalor of cash swirling around Westminster. Another strongly backed amendment from Alex Sobel, to set up a national commission on electoral reform, was ruled out of the scope of the bill by the speaker, but the government confirmed it supports reform: it will be back and in the next manifesto.
That’s a good start. You couldn’t hope for better. Can he buck the trend of prime ministers haemorrhaging popularity within months? Storms ahead are threatening. But facing into the wind with optimism is the way to go.
