Government bonds haven’t had a great few days, but there is one asset which has plummeted far quicker in value this morning: all the Wes Streeting-themed web domain names which had been registered in the hope that the former health secretary would run for the top job. Just try putting up ‘wesforleader.com’ or ‘wes4pm.org’ for sale now that Streeting has abandoned his own leadership ambitions and put his weight behind Andy Burnham.
In a party of fiscal fantasists, Streeting held the one flickering beacon of reality
True, he probably didn’t have a lot of choice given the number of Labour MPs who seemed prepared to sign Burnham’s nomination papers. But how utterly depressing at the same time. For the past few weeks, the possibility of a Streeting premiership was the one hope that many of us clung to as Britain inexorably slides into fiscal disaster.
He alone of the possible candidates seemed to have a strong sense of responsibility regarding the public finances. He alone seemed to have the courage to appreciate that the problem with the NHS and other public services is not a lack of money; it is the wanton abandon with how that money is spent. I don’t want to go too effuse with praise: he did, after all, try to buy off junior doctors with a fat, unconditional pay rise in 2024 before later telling them they weren’t going to get another one out of him. But in a party of fiscal fantasists, Streeting held the one flickering beacon of reality. Now that has been snuffed out, there isn’t a great deal of hope of averting a Liz Truss-style crisis, only more severe this time around.
It won’t do Labour much good, either, to have Burnham crowned leader without even a contest. Like Rishi Sunak, he will find himself in power with neither a popular mandate nor one from his own party. He can try to fool himself that he is popular with the public on the back of 55 per cent of the vote in Makerfield, but that isn’t going to be enough. Either he quickly calls a general election for this autumn or he is going to find himself as a titular prime minister, an unelected leader whose party is polling on less than 20 per cent of the vote.
Sunak at least came to office after a summer of leadership debates with Liz Truss. His performance didn’t persuade the Conservative party to vote for him, but he had been forced to lay out his vision for the country, so that when the top job became unexpectedly available, his warnings that Truss’s economic policies would lead to soaring interest rates gave him some authority.
This is not so for Andy Burnham. He will now almost certainly come to office without being properly tested, without us knowing what he really stands for other than £2 bus fares. That is especially unfortunate given the inconsistency in views he has expressed in recent months. It is hard to tell whether he really wants to rejoin the EU or renationalise all public utilities. He said he would compensate Waspi women, but then changed his mind. He didn’t want us to be in hock to the bond markets but then said he would stick to Rachel Reeves’s fiscal rules.
Never in modern times will we have had a prime minister who has had so little public scrutiny on the issues of the day. Maybe Streeting is deliberately trying to undermine Burnham from day one, but regardless, sidestepping a leadership contest will prove to be a huge own goal for the Labour party.
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