As Andy Burnham, who is still mayor of Greater Manchester in his spare time, campaigns to win the Makerfield by-election in fewer than four weeks, he knows how much is at stake. It is not simply an opportunity to return to the ‘London-centric’ House of Commons he left nine years ago in order ‘to make a change, to challenge the status quo from the outside’. If he is returned to Parliament – as the odds very narrowly suggest he will be – there is a strong chance he will replace Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister within a short period of time.
It is a staggeringly foolish decision by Burnham to seek her advice
Given the situation, it is perfectly reasonable that Burnham has devoted some time to thinking about what his premiership would be like. Just as Napoleon said that every French soldier carried a field marshal’s baton in his cartridge pouch, many MPs think at some point, however idly, about being prime minister, and Burnham is closer to the dream than most. That proximity also means that he will not lack for advice.
Nevertheless, it was still genuinely breathtaking to read in the Mail on Sunday that Burnham has been taking advice on a ‘transition to power’ and the possible ‘configuration’ of the Downing Street machinery from Baroness Gray of Tottenham. Sue Gray was, of course, Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, first in opposition and then in 10 Downing Street. When the Labour leader recruited her in 2023, one of the main reasons for her appointment was her vast experience of the civil service. She had latterly served as second permanent secretary to the Cabinet Office, before which she had spent three years running the department of finance in Northern Ireland and six years as director general of propriety and ethics in Whitehall.
The idea was that Gray would smooth Labour’s transition to government after 14 years in opposition because she knew how the civil service machine worked, knew where the real levers of power were and could use her long years in the bureaucracy to flatten out the inevitable learning curve of a new government.
She proved a disaster. There were incessant rumours of power struggles within Downing Street, of Gray trying to control access to the Prime Minister and micromanaging issues like the appointment of special advisers. She was, her critics said, a bottleneck in the decision-making process, unwilling to delegate and distrustful of colleagues. Worst of all, the new government, despite years of preparation and a near-certainty that Labour would win the 2024 general election, seemed to have no grand plan, no vision, no concerted schedule once it was elected.
There were clumsy mistakes, especially over gifts to the Prime Minister and other colleagues, which were all the more foolish given they fell into Gray’s long-time bailiwick of propriety and ethics. A revised ministerial code was delayed again and again, making the government look defensive. And legislatively there was drift and confusion: an early announcement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, that the winter fuel payment to pensioners would be restricted set the wrong tone for relatively little gain; and ministers wilted and retreated on plans for welfare reform in the face of criticism from their own backbenchers.
Gray lasted less than 100 days as Downing Street chief of staff before being waved off with a peerage. She had failed on the very territory for the mastery and experience of which she had been hired. A bureaucrat had failed at bureaucracy and the damage to Starmer’s leadership was palpable.
It is a staggeringly foolish decision by Burnham to seek her advice on this very same issue. The mayor’s team has not denied her involvement, only saying, predictably and primly, that ‘Andy is not getting ahead of himself – his full focus is on Makerfield’. There was a time his full focus was on being mayor of Greater Manchester. But seeking Gray’s counsel on preparing for government is like asking Boris Johnson for guidance on probity in public life – it is an area in which she has publicly and damagingly been found wanting.
It also reveals an acceptance of an underlying fallacy. Systems and institutions are important, but there is a prevailing belief that it is only or principally the shape of the machinery of government which is causing ministers to struggle across the board. An unending search for a silver bullet – mission boards, an inner cabinet, a Department of the Prime Minister – implies that all will be well when the answer is found.
The truth is that most failures in government stem from bad policy and incompetent people. John Healey, the Defence Secretary, has radically overhauled the structure of the Ministry of Defence, but the armed forces remain in crisis mode because of dithering, delays in spending decisions, lack of strategic clarity and insufficient resources. Starmer’s premiership is collapsing not because the ‘configuration’ of the Downing Street bureaucracy is flawed but because he is a bad prime minister, aimless, irresolute, politically clumsy and often unwilling to face reality.
His relationship with Sue Gray indicates that Burnham is similarly deluded. It is a useful scapegoat to blame ‘the machine’, but if he thinks he will succeed where Starmer has failed by administrative change, a shock awaits him.
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