Andy Burnham has had a fairly easy prime ministerial ride so far, but with summer now segueing into autumn, he may soon begin to feel those back to school blues. Parliament returns in just over a week. I imagine the next few months of his calendar marked like medieval maps – “Here be dragons”.
The political terrain ahead is littered with obstacles, and there’s no way of navigating them that’ll please most, never mind all. But by the time October’s budget drops, we should know at least one thing. Is Burnhamism same-old same-old with an upbeat vibe? Or does it have that rarest of political things: a direction?
In late October, Burnham’s government will have to do its sums in front of the British public. And we already know its options are limited by a manifesto commitment to former chancellor Rachel Reeves’ fiscal rules, setting heavy restrictions on further borrowing. But Burnham’s arrival in Number 10 was, it turns out, its own mini-fiscal event. Earlier this month UK consumer confidence reached a two-year high, meaning ordinary Brits are feeling more rosy about their personal economic futures and willing to spend more. In fact, they’ve not felt this way since before Keir Starmer took office in 2024.
Don’t get too excited though – our confidence in our economy is still negative overall, and has been for a decade. Turns out, austerity makes us hopeless (those of us lucky enough to survive it, that is). And economic hope is a fragile thing – it needs to be fed with the loosening of household belts. People will want to be sure their growing faith is more than a summer fling.
A single budget, or even a series of them, can’t resolve the features of austerity that have all but broken a nation. Burnham does seem to know that – after all, he took office just over a month ago with a ten-year plan to hand, one that seemed at least to recognise the centrality of social housing and economic redistribution to piecing the UK back together again.
He’s put regional devolution at the centre of that, and this weekend we heard more about it. Speaking to the Sunday Times from No 10 North (and giving more than a little Twenty Twelve), Burnham announced his plans to give regional mayors in England the power to overrule local councils on big building projects – including social housing.
The targets, according to Burnham, are “nimby” councils, local politicians for whom “computer says no” has become the go-to. Now, nimbyism is no doubt a problem (though I’d like to see more data on its extent), with some local leaders letting the next elections, rather than local needs, inform their decision making. The same could be said of mayors too, with Burnham noting in the same interview his own failings on that front while running Manchester. While shiny skyscrapers attracted headlines, some have argued that the city became more a symbol of flashy, international wealth than of economic redistribution.
It’s a little too easy to point the finger at nimbyism, though. After all, it’s a concept rather than a chunk of material reality, like the collapse of local council budgets. And much easier than addressing deeper-seated problems in our political culture. The fish rots from the head, they say, and an overheated politics driven by party- and headline-wins rather than people-gains is one that’s long been modelled by Burnham’s new patch: Westminster.
Similarly, devolving economic powers to regional mayors will only bring improvements if they’re uninfected by the economic thinking that dominates central government. The quest for growth measured by GDP has too often meant more for those at the top of the economic tree, while the basic conditions of life continue to crumble for those lower down, waiting, waiting, waiting for the promised trickle that never comes. That’s a significant source of anger and despair in this country, and we all know we don’t have ten years to fix it.
It might be a new school year for Burnham, but exams have already begun.
Steven Methven is the editor of Novara Live, Novara Media’s nightly news and politics YouTube show.
