Why not blame Herbert Asquith or Lord Aberdeen? Andy Burnham’s line about reversing ‘40 years of neo-liberalism’ – i.e. since the Thatcher government’s reforms – is beginning to grate somewhat. ‘Britain took a series of wrong turns in the 1980s,’ he told us, while accepting the Labour leadership. We ‘surrendered control’ of water and electricity, while ‘large parts of Britain were deindustrialised’. It might have been an appropriate line for Labour when fighting the 1997 general election. For Burnham to deliver it today is a little ridiculous, given that Labour has been in power for 15 of those past 40 years. Indeed, Burnham himself was in the cabinet for three of those years. He appears to be confessing to having been part of the neoliberalist regime which ruined Britain.
Burnham told us ‘I have a plan’. Yet again, however, there was not shred of detail on what that plan will be, except perhaps what we know already: he doesn’t like privatised buses
Burnham is a substitute prime minister in a party which two years ago won 34 per cent of the vote in a general election, yet you would think from the tone of his address today that he had just won a large personal mandate. He has none, and that is not a great basis on which to announce a grand plan to reverse 40 years of anything: neoliberalism, socialism of whatever else. Moreover, Burnham appeared to confirm that he will not be seeking a mandate. After paying a warm tribute to what he saw as the great achievements of Keir Starmer – the man he has just deposed – he said that the people of Makerfield had spoken on behalf of all forgotten communities. Really? I don’t recall the people of Scunthorpe, Teesside or Barrow in Furness asking Burnham to speak on their behalf. In reality, Burnham simply held onto an existing Labour seat, and our new PM is going to treat that as carte blanche to reverse 40 years of economic policy.
Burnham told us ‘I have a plan’. Yet again, however, there was not shred of detail on what that plan will be, except perhaps what we know already: he doesn’t like privatised buses.
Does he want nationalisation of public services, or just greater regulation? All he said was that ‘Take back control’ was a favoured expression of the right (it was actually the slogan of Vote Leave, which was backed by a number of Labour MPs), adding that the right ‘are the ones who gave it away in the first place.’ In reality, privatised utilities have always been under the thumb of regulators, which have limited prices and laid down service levels. If he wants to give those regulators more teeth, then fine, tell us so. Burnham, however, has built up the expectation that he is going to reverse the privatisations; he is going to cause a lot of disappointment among the Labour faithful if he does not.
He said he is going to be a friend of business, and have business working with the state – as you could say private developers have done on the back of generous loans and handouts from Burnham’s Greater Manchester authority. But isn’t that then taking us back to the neoliberalism he so despises? Surely utility companies are working together with the state, too.
How is he going to reverse those 40 years of deindustrialisation? Taking industries back into state ownership, as happened to British Steel yesterday? If he wants to reindustrialise Britain he is quickly going to have to learn that the rest of the world is not going to give up on neoliberalism; he is going to find himself trying to prop up industries which are battling against lean and mean competitors (as well as ones which are not bogged down by the sky-high energy prices delivered by the government’s net-zero policies, of which he said nothing, other than he doesn’t want to ‘out green the Greens’).
Burnham’s wife is famous for having appeared on an episode of Blind Date, in which she chose a wrong ‘un with whom she turned out to be hopelessly incompatible: a man in dungarees Cilla Black called ‘Andy Pandy’. Britain is in much the same place now: on a blind date with Andy Pandy. The only difference is that, unless you happen to live in Makerfield, you didn’t get to ask him questions and didn’t get to choose him either.
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