5th July 2026
The Burnham Identity – Part 2
- “Let me take you back to… the 1970s”… “This brings me back… right back to Peterloo two hundred years ago”… “our modern challenge…from the mid-1980s onwards”… “If people in 1844 could form the Cooperative Movement in Rochdale to lower the price of food, then why can’t we act now with similar courage to make life better?”.
- For a man about to become prime minister in two weeks’ time, Andy Burnham’s first speech spent a lot of time looking backwards.
- Perhaps this is why we have heard of the return of many faces from the 1990s Blair/Brown years: James Purnell is already chief of staff, Ed Miliband is waiting to become Chancellor, his brother David may yet return to the US Ambassador role originally envisaged for him, and Ed Balls could ascend from morning TV sofa to red bench growth commissioner.
- This is not to say the Burnham Identity won’t be radical. It will.
- Andy has variously already announced he wants to end the whipping system, open No10 North, remove business rates for hairdressers and cafes and gain greater public control of utilities.
- His policy brains, from Louise Haigh to Miatta Fahnbulleh, Mark McVitie to Josh Simons, have suggested various new ideas: adding growth to the Bank of England’s mandate; bringing CGT closer to income tax rates and replacing council tax and stamp duty with a land value (or property) tax.
- And we already have the steady drip of potential tweaks to current taxes, such as reducing the level at which the “mansion tax” kicks in to £1.5m.
- The Budget is likely to arrive towards the end of October.
- The first date, assuming the 10 week OBR forecast process and allowing for conference recess, would be Wednesday 14th October.
- A delay is unlikely given this is a new administration keen to make its mark and it is led by a man who, unlike the departing prime minister, has some understanding and enjoyment of the art of deploying political capital.
- Burnham is therefore aware of how fast that capital can evaporate.
- That is why he is spending time now pulling together as wide a base of support as he can. Fresh from winning Makerfield resoundingly, he now needs to win over his Labour MPs resoundingly. His team are still working as if this were a leadership campaign as they hope to have at least 80% of MP names on the ballot paper anointing him.
- This isn’t just an abundance of caution; it will seek to reduce the chance of 20% of them uniting around a replacement. Team Burnham know their man will still at some stage be prey to a leadership challenge despite his current strong position.
- Hence why the shape of the Cabinet is not yet clear.
- Making enemies by disappointing those who hoped for patronage is potentially unrecoverable at this stage of the electoral cycle. Some MPs careers will be over.
- But Burnham knows he will have to be ruthless.
- The most revealing line of his speech was “the political direction I set is not up for negotiation”.
- And he knows the buck stops with him.
- The creation of No10 North isn’t just a gimmick or a sop to The North. By setting up a power centre physically distant from Whitehall and specifically from the Treasury, Burnham evidently hopes he can have more power.
- As Louise Haigh put it in her ever-more influential “new fiscal framework” paper: ‘we have an underpowered Downing Street, in which the Prime Minister needs the agreement of the Chancellor to push ahead with the priorities on which they were elected. We must therefore reopen the discussion of removing the growth mandate from the Treasury, while creating an economic development ministry capable of coordinating across Whitehall. Opponents will say that only the Treasury has the power to corral other departments into thinking about growth. I would gently point to the anaemic growth figures since 2008 as a sign that maybe we should not expect our Chancellors to be able to do it all‘.
- Once Burnham has tightened his grip on Labour MPs, he then faces his toughest challenge: winning over the country.
- There has already been a “Starmer resignation” bounce in the polls, with Labour gaining a couple of percentage points and narrowing the gap with Reform to almost 4 pct pts.
- With Reform about to face the potential sideshow of a recall by-election for Nigel Farage over his alleged undeclared support from various donors, it’s possible a “Burnham bounce” could narrow the Labour/Reform gap further.
- Calls for a General Election will mount.
- Excited Burnhamites, frustrated Faragistes, and a confused electorate being led by a man who didn’t even stand in the last General Election will create tantalising pressure on the new administration.
- A new policy platform would benefit from a clear mandate and logistically, Reform and the Greens will be caught on the hop. Marshalling resources to provide 650 decent candidates is difficult enough for the established parties.
- When Labour win the Greater Manchester Mayoralty on Thursday 30th July, Burnham might feel unstoppable.
- But an Election this year is unlikely.
- It would be ballsy at best to call an election in such an unpredictable environment. The electorate is split 4 or even 5 ways and there is little data available on relatively new constituencies to inform tactical voting.
- And going from a landslide majority to the largest party in a hung parliament would complicate rather than improve the Burnham mandate.
- In any case there will be an election within the next 18 months.
- The Labour Party remains both government and opposition and the fiscal constraints remain too tight for any Labour government to meet without alienating a large portion of their own voters.
- Burnham might advocate for public/private investment cooperation – “We will consolidate public and private investment at a place-based level” – but the OBR has already shown scepticism about this, demonstrating at the first Labour budget in October 2024 that public investment crowds out private sector investment:
- The Burnham Supremacy will be a short sequel.
- The story might have a new protagonist but the ending remains the same.
