How the King of the North became Prime Minister in waiting - Susan Dalgety
Barring an unforeseen accident – or a military coup led by Count Binface – this time next week we will have a new Prime Minister.
Andy Burnham, the self-styled ‘King of the North’ in his Harrington jacket and black T-shirt with his Smiths playlist and flat vowels, will walk through the front door of 10 Downing Street while Keir Starmer and his family escape by the back door.
How did this happen? There was no general election to choose a new government and a fresh Prime Minister. There wasn’t even a Labour Party leadership battle to decide which likely lad should become boss.
And I mean ‘likely lad’, as the people’s party has not had a single woman leader since Keir Hardie was the first to take on the job in 1906. Not one. Even the Tories have had four, if you count Liz Truss. But I digress.
Andy Burnham only had to win the Makerfield by-election and before you could say “out brother out”, Keir Starmer was at the podium outside No.10 handing in his resignation.
A small but determined group of MPs from round Manchester way had orchestrated a bloodless coup with even less drama than when Maggie Thatcher was ousted in 1990 or Boris given the boot in 2022.
Why? Because Keir Starmer was unlovable. He may have been a proficient administrator, but he did not understand either the Labour Party or the country.
His adenoidal voice got on everyone’s nerves and it was never clear how he was going to fix the country, exhausted after two decades of one crisis after another. So the king is dead, long live the king (of the north).
But what does Andy Burnham have to offer, other than trendy dad vibes? His big vision is “growth in every postcode, hope in every heart”, which, like most political slogans, sounds cheesy when you say it out loud, but actually is a powerful manifesto, up to a point.
Our economy is in the doldrums, there are one million young people out of work or not in training, and the cost of living seems to get higher by the week. We do need hope that things will get better, but we also need action. There is no bigger vote loser than an empty slogan.
Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester for nearly ten years, has also promised more devolution, including a No.10 North (did he ask Larry the Cat whether he wanted to spend half his week in the land of Oasis?).
But Scotland has had powerful devolution for nearly 30 years and we are as much in need of “growth in every postcode and hope in every heart” as our friends and family south of the border.
How will the new Prime Minister persuade the SNP to go along with his plans? Or will Scotland be forced to watch from the sidelines as Burnham works his magic on England?
It is far too early to tell whether Andy Burnham is anything more than an ambitious politician with a smidgen of charm, but as he gets ready for No.10, I find myself humming the D:Ream classic, ‘Things can only better’. But to be honest, they can’t get much worse.