Andy Burnham has just finished his first speech as Labour leader. The Prime Minister delivered the message his party craved: a seventy-minute peroration that tied his personal story to the nation’s future. We were promised a meaty speech – and Burnham delivered.
In an unashamed appeal to his party’s values, the Prime Minister began by championing public control in three main areas: water, housing and energy. He then moved onto three further areas where he wants to move the dial: electoral reform, Europe and social care. It concluded with an emotive appeal in the name of his late father, Roy, hailing the cause of the Union and pledging to build a Britain fit for the future. Standing ovation after standing ovation greeted his remarks: delegates left the hall with several rubbing away tears in their eyes.
Burnham promised a ‘different kind of conference speech’ – but in many ways it was pretty standard fare. There were the usual attacks on Margaret Thatcher, Brexit, Liz Truss and Tory failure: the ritual name checks for Beveridge, Wilson and popular cabinet colleagues. He spoke of ‘40 years’ of political failure – a line which echoed Rishi Sunak’s 2023 address.
Much of what Burnham promised today will be criticised as undeliverable
But while the content was familiar, it was the delivery which was vastly improved. Burnham’s emotive display explained the ‘why’ of his politics better than perhaps any Labour leader since Tony Blair. ‘Keir could not have delivered that speech,’ one MP remarked afterwards. It produced lots of cheers, a few laughs and a quietly devastating attack on John Swinney when a choked-up Burnham pointed out that the Scottish First Minister had attacked him on the day his father died.
The inevitable question after a display like that was, when is the election going to be? This was a tailor-made offer for progressive voters, as Burnham seeks to unite the centre left behind him. For all the talk of his radicalism, most of his big promises are only pledged in the next parliament. The overhaul of the triple lock, for example, only begins in 2030. Burnham is a gambler – but one who studies the odds.
Strikingly, of all the standing ovations he received, it was the one on electoral reform which most divided the room, with scores of delegates declining to join in the applause. As one MP remarked afterwards, ‘All those achievements that Andy listed were done by a Labour majority government.’ One suspects plenty will be making their feelings known in private this evening.
It was Nikita Khrushchev, a product of a rather different political system, who once offered this sage advice on rhetoric. ‘If the people believe there’s an imaginary river out there’, he said, ‘you don’t tell them there’s no river there. You build an imaginary bridge over the imaginary river.’ Much of what Burnham promised today will be criticised as undeliverable. But the point is, after two years of delay, his party is ready and willing to believe. For Burnham, the challenge is to take the country with him now, on the journey to his promised land.
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