A BBC reporter, collecting vox pops during Andy Burnham’s train journey to London, explained away his popularity with interviewees anywhere near Manchester by saying they were of course “Burnham’s people”. Well yes, but they are only Burnham’s people because he made them so. When he first turned up he was just another politician, and we know the default view of those. “Ooh, he’s lovely,” says more than one woman. But they only think that because he’s given them cause over the past 12 years as mayor, and Mancunians are not generally known as a pushover. When he was re-elected, he won a majority in every ward.
As he arrived in the Commons to be sworn in, the atmosphere was transformed: it had a spirit of roguishness. It was almost like vaudeville. Mr Burnham bounced in, half eager newbie and half jack the lad, sharing surreptitious grins with his new classmates. His two MP minders were trying not to giggle. There was banter. There were jokes across the aisle, even a wink (when Kemi Badenoch would have much preferred a steely contempt from her own side).
Rafael Behr wrote this week of a “goodwill drought” in British politics. But it seems people just tend to like Andy Burnham, or perhaps they are determined to give him the benefit of the doubt as our last resort.
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There is an old clip of Andy Burnham standing in front of the Treasury, and with a jerk of his head saying: “All this lot live within the M25”. But Mr Burnham’s apparent disdain for cosmopolites is, perhaps not surprisingly, reciprocated by the cosmopolites themselves. There does seem a certain hauteur about some of the political assessment, a disdain for Mr Burnham and all his works and the very idea of ‘Manchesterisation’, as though anticipating the vulgarity of his provincial palette.
Many of our media elite would rather be taken in adultery than in provincialism – and indeed some of them have. Though given the vulgarity of the coterie of Tory leaders they have foisted on us over the past few years, to our suffering and embarrassment, their view that the arrival of a lad from ‘oop north’ might lead to undue vulgarity seems somewhat compromised.
For now, even though we have only an aperçu of his intent, the magic of ‘Pretty Boy’ Burnham is already working. The first poll since the Starmer resignation shows a Burnham-led Labour leaping by several points to overtake Reform. (As foretold by Pecksniff last week, of course.)
It is always gratifying to be a little voulu, and we should not begrudge MrBurnham his days in the sun. (It is, after all, a change from Manchester.)
*
Notwithstanding some deus ex machina, it seems Andy Burnham will become prime minister on 17 July, and we will learn more of his plans in his first and perhaps seminal speech next week. (A whisper in the Burnham ear: only 11 out of 632 constituencies would now back Brexit.)
The date was the subject of a secret meeting between him and Sir Keir, described afterwards by one of the Starmer team as “frosty”. It seems the insurgents wanted a delay in handing over power till September. This seems odd, since at the moment the Burnham project is hot. It has momentum. But with every passing day, opponents will pick away at the hope and goodwill. Now is when Mr Burnham is at his most powerful.
Besides, a delay would leave the country in limbo through the summer. The CBI has already warned against “drift”, and three months of the country rolling on with nobody at the wheel is potentially alarming. What if there is a run on the pound? What if Russia sinks a British merchant ship? Would the déclassé Keir Starmer feel he could take dramatic measures?
It is claimed that it was Mr Burnham who wanted the surely unworkable long delay, and Team Starmer who insisted on a swift change-over. This is not a good look either. If the change-over ought to need more time, as claimed, then Keir Starmer’s throwing a hissy fit to scupper the idea does not reflect well on his claims to place his country first.
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Shakespeare foretold it in Macbeth, more or less. “Starmer shall never vanquished be, until Andy Burnham shall come against him”. (Well, Birnam Wood, but more or less.) It has all happened with the suddenness of a coup. Only three days after Keir Starmer had confidently told the world that, in the event of a challenge, he would certainly contest it and expect to win, he was checkmated, effectively already out of power and writing his resignation speech.
This is astonishing because we are used to nothing in British politics happening quickly or according to plan. Following the Makerfield result, with ruthless speed and efficiency, the Burnham tanks were parked on the 10 Downing Street lawns. They seemed to have no doubt that all opposition would be brushed aside and their man would win.
So whoever masterminded the plot really ought to be employed to bring those skills to government. We could all benefit from them. They are apparently, according to Andy Burnham, “a trio of Northern power women”, though probably only one is well known. Louise Haigh is Keir Starmer’s former transport secretary, Anneliese Midgley is the MP for Knowsley, and Grace Pritchard is a special adviser to Ed Miliband. Mark these names well.
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Meanwhile, two of our region’s MPs were among the organisers of the fated letter to back Keir Starmer: Jack Abbott (Ipswich) and Bayo Alaba (Southend East and Rochford). The letter attracted 111 signatures, though there was controversy when one, Rupa Huq, denied she had signed it.
Down at the Muckrakers, the wise men had no doubt of Mr Abbott’s abilities. But: “Jack’s problem has always been loyalty”, remarked one of the wise men. ‘Loyalty to Spurs, loyalty to the party, loyalty to his leader.”
Your diarist has always distrusted loyalty in politics. It is usually demanded as a means of stifling dissent. But Mr Burnham apparently has ideas of allowing his MP greater freedom to speak their minds. Political loyalty might thus become devalued.
*
The British electorate are buggered if they are going to have fascism foisted on them, just because the milquetoasts in Westminster daren’t chuck first past the post. We now have tactical voting down to a fine art. In Makerfield, the Liberal Democrats and Greens together polled just 3%. (For the record, the Tories were squeezed on the right too: they took just 2%, and some canvassers insisted they lost votes to Andy Burnham, to avoid Reform.)
Zack Polanski didn’t improve his credentials as a leader of the progressive left by insisting the Greens should make a proper contest of the election. Little good it did him, but this is in spite of Andy Burnham having shared a platform with leading Greens to campaign for proportional representation, which he seems likely to introduce; so making a Burnham victory a huge step forward for Greens.
Fortunately, Mr Polanski’s voters ignored everything he said. We might hope that in all the hubris of the party’s sudden ascendancy, there might be room for a little humility in acknowledging that the voters aren’t pawns to be pushed around, and many of them still have minds of their own. If in doubt, Mr Polanski might glance at the latest poll, predicating a Burnham premiership: it shows the Greens back at 6%.
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One Reform MP who had canvassed in Makerfield is quoted in The Times of his experience on the doorstep as saying: “We were either too racist or not racist enough”.
There is in-fighting and exasperation. Reform were seen, by a lazy and uninformed media, as an apparently unstoppable force which would inevitably sweep aside the established order to win the next general election in an avalanche. Well, it never was and it never will, but those in the party were swept along by the hubris.
But now, they have lost six by-elections in a row, and over their shoulder they hear the jackboot march of Restore. Relationships among leading figures are poisonous, and their paladin, Nigel Farage, has gone missing, preoccupied with more pressing matters involving a five million quid gift from a mysterious crypto-billionaire.
He now has another controversy to face: a potential threat not only to his reputation but to his political future. According to the Financial Times: “Farage used around €1.8 million of EU funds to bankroll his Brexit campaign”.
For all his bravura, Mr Farage is already under pressure over the separate question of his five million quid from Christopher Harborne, which is being examined by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. If the commissioner finds against him, then a Commons committee – coincidentally made up of his enemies – can suspend him from the Commons. If it is a long suspension – 10 days or more (and if the commissioner were to uphold the complaint it is difficult to see how it can be less) – then there will probably be a by-election in Clacton. Which your humble echotier suggests Mr Farage would probably lose. And an end to Mr Farage is an end to Reform.
One who is keen to see the first bit happen and hopes to avoid the second is the snake-like Robert Jenrick, who on Thursday broke ranks with his leader’s protestations and claimed the media had every right to question him on his five million smackers. This sudden treachery feels quite Shakespearean. But to quote the bard: “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune”. It seems the utterly unscrupulous Mr Jenrick has decided this is his tide, and his flood.
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What is it, we have to wonder, about Councillor Ryan Coogan, the Reform group leader of Huntingdon Council? Not a week passes without his blundering into another absurd and embarrassing accusation for which he is slapped down.
This week, according to the BBC, he has named some unfortunate teacher, who works as a special needs co-ordinator at a village college, of “making victims’ lives more difficult”, and having “absolutely no clue about children and their needs”. He then declares his complaint as being “as big as the rape gang scandal”.
The “victims” here are presumably the children who have special needs, a patronising description neither they nor their parents are likely to welcome.
In a letter to parents, the Astra Academy trust said: “We are committed to the wellbeing of our staff and will not tolerate any form of abuse, intimidation or harassment directed to them”.
*
Councillor Michael Hadwen is the new Reform leader of Suffolk County Council. Last week we reported rumours that he believes his office isn’t big enough and wants something more appropriate. This week there are complaints of cancelled meetings, refusals to allow contributions from the public, and a glorious cock-up over Reform’s determination to challenge proposed local government reorganisation.
The deadline for the legal challenge was Thursday, but by Wednesday evening the rest of the council still had not been informed of the grounds. In a brilliant example of scheduling, Hapless Hadwen has arranged a meeting to discuss whether the proposals should proceed for, wait for it… Monday – two working days after the deadline for submissions. As we go to press, everybody seems in the dark. Including, we must assume, Cllr Hadwen.
“How can a legal challenge that a cash-strapped council admits could cost more than £500,000 possibly be a priority for Suffolk?” asks Labour’s Cllr John Cook. “The more you look at it, the less it resembles a council acting in our best interests, and the more it looks like Reform fighting Nigel Farage’s battles with Suffolk taxpayers’ money.”
*
Like their colleagues around the region, the five Reform councillors on Kings Lynn and West Norfolk Council are doggedly determined at the earliest opportunity to live up to their party’s reputation for bovine stupidity. They were due to introduce a motion to rescind the council’s climate emergency declaration and deprioritise its decarbonisation efforts, claiming the climate emergency is a fraud, or so to speak, a lot of hot air. The motion was to be addressed at a meeting on Thursday.
The meeting was cancelled, due to the extreme heat alert.
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This week’s earwiggers were Malcolm Lynn, John Elworthy, James Porter, Karl Whiteman, Stace Richards, Liz Crosbie, Mark Popay, Helen Forte, David Patey and Celina Błędowska.
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