Why Hasn’t Andy Burnham Said a Word on the Drought?

While Andy Burnham jets off on his summer hols, spare a thought for those of us left toiling in the content mines during the dog days of silly season. There’s not a lot of news to go around. Though the new prime minister has adopted a posture which is much looser and less buttoned-up than his predecessor, the reality is that (so far) Burnham has run a tightly controlled operation. 

The MP for Makerfield hasn’t strayed far from the grid, each day peppered with some optimistic-sounding announcement or other. We’ve had support for apprenticeships, a cap on bus fares, VAT cut on electricity bills. Unlike Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves who spent their first weeks frowning about how they couldn’t be expected to do anything, this new government clearly wants to convey the sense that it’s helmed by a man who’s been raring to roll up his sleeves and get stuck in.

But – sorry to be a Debbie Downer – the UK is facing some pretty big problems. And our new prime minister is playing it close to the vest when it comes to how he wants to solve them.

If I was to provide a comprehensive list of the UK’s ailments, we’d be here all day. So, let’s start with an obvious one that’s probably visible from your window: it’s been a blisteringly hot summer, and half of England and Wales is currently in drought. Hosepipe bans have been introduced in many parts of the country – and the consequences of this exceptional period of dry weather go further than some crunchy nasturtiums at the bottom of your garden. 

According to analysis by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, we’re heading for one of our worst cereal and oilseed harvests on record. Not only are these grains important components of our diets, they’re crucial in supplying livestock feed. And as any medieval peasant could tell you, a bad harvest = prices going up. 

You’d think that a government that’s made the cost of living its top priority would be all over this like white on rice. And yet, there’s been nothing from Burnham on the drought. Angela Eagle, the secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs, met with the National Farmers Union in late July, but so far hasn’t made any public announcements. Miatta Fahnbulleh, who’s got the net zero brief, has largely focused on the upside (record sunshine means record solar-generated electricity). When it comes to catastrophic climate change, our new PM is determined to keep it sunny.

Then there’s Iran. This helpful little graphic from the New York Times looks a bit like the momentum chart from the World Cup, except it tracks the intensity of US and Iranian attacks since April. What it shows is a state of whiplash: conflict, negotiation and back again. Shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is down again, though not completely wiped out. Leaving aside the loss of life and the human cost of rising geopolitical instability, there is once more a massive implication for the cost of living here in the UK. 

We’ve already seen an increase in energy bills, with food prices also forecast to go up. Citing the cost of living, ten leaders of UK trade unions have today urged Burnham to revoke permission for the US to use British airbases for strikes on the Middle East. But, once more, this is an issue where we don’t really know what the prime minister thinks, much less how he intends to address the crisis.

That’s not to say that Burnham has been entirely silent on big, complex issues. Last week, he made a speech laying out the urgent need to reform social care. He’s not the first prime minister to promise change on that front (*cough* Boris Johnson *cough*). Burnham has brought forward Baroness Casey’s review into social care, so that it will be published next summer instead of in 2028. The kindest interpretation is that the prime minister, hemmed in by Labour’s commitments not to increase tax in the 2024 manifesto, wants to be able to use the need for social care funding as the pretext for an early general election. The less generous view might be that the man from Makerfield with his can-do attitude seems more interested in doing some can-kicking than pursuing a course of action.