After a week off in the Caribbean, The Great Triviality was off his kilter in his initial remarks at PMQs. The Prime Minister slipped up in several parts of his statement: he almost annexed Krakow to Ukraine and, even more worryingly, nearly promoted Sir Chris Bryant to home secretary.
Mrs Badenoch, perhaps smelling blood, asked why it was that the PM – a supposed critic of neoliberalism – had entrusted his ten-year plan to the junior Excel monkeys of the Boston Consulting Group. In his reply Mr Burnham was back on firmer ground; namely, meaningless statements of intent without any firm commitment to action. ‘I’m determined to give stability and leadership,’ he warbled. He did claim that it was his aim to present the plan to the House before it rises for its festive recess. What a Christmas present that is: MPs must be on the ‘very naughty’ list.
Mrs Badenoch did manage to spoil the surprise by announcing some of the leaked headline policies of the ten-year plan. Stalin’s first five-year plan was for the complete industrial transformation of the entire Soviet economy. The highlight of Andy Burnham’s plan taking double that time is to merge the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency with the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency. Mrs Badenoch’s leaking of this radical change in the make-up of the state earned an ironic Frankie Howerd-coded ‘ooooooo’ from the opposition benches. Even Mr Burnham allowed himself a wry smile. Not so Louise Haigh, who sat next to the Prime Minister puce and furious, like a microwaved mole rat.
Mrs Badenoch moved onto the budget. This made Mr Burnham prissier: ‘It was the most popular budget for a number of years,’ he claimed. This was a bizarrely Trumpian sort of self-aggrandisement – expect mentions of ‘bald beautiful John Healey’ to follow in due course. Mrs Badenoch responded that anything would be popular compared to a document authored in part by Rachel Reeves. She drew attention, too, to the sleight-of-hand incompetences which Labour continue to indulge in: such as the fact that they have already spent the tax revenue from the Rosebank oil field despite not yet having approved it.
In his defence of the government’s fiscal policy, Mr Burnham mentioned the Milburn report – cheers were less loud for this from his backbenchers. Labour MPs are gearing up for a fight on any changes at all to the welfare black hole. What did for his predecessor may yet do for Burnham himself.
Talking of the Starmer era, Labour’s nonce-, or at the very least perv-adjacency, came back to haunt it once again. Mrs Badenoch brought up the fact that Ed Miliband once thought that close contact with Russell Brand might help him be elected prime minister, rather than something that should provoke a victim statement. A sort of Mount Rushmore of incompetence on the government front bench tutted and shook its heads in one mass of uselessness as she did so.
‘They’re saying shame – they’re right, the Foreign Secretary should be ashamed,’ she said. In fact Mrs Badenoch was quite reserved in pushing this line of argument: she didn’t mention that in 2008 Labour auctioned off a ‘private swimming session’ with David Walliams. What else was on the list? A trip to the National Gallery with Rolf Harris?
Burnham is capable of detailed and inspired explanations of small-scale things but just blinks into nothingness when confronted with larger scale issues
Mrs Badenoch concluded her questions by accusing Mr Burnham of ‘a lot of waffle’. They need ‘consultants to tell them what to think and civil servants to tell them what to do’, she sneered. Cue more tutting and head shaking from the fatberg of mediocrity of the front bench.
As the session turned to questions by backbenchers, one of the Great Triviality’s favourite topics came up in a planted question: bus regulation in Manchester. Cue a lengthy and impassioned answer about capped fares. Here really is the nub of Mr Burnham; he is capable of detailed and inspired explanations of small-scale things but just blinks into nothingness when confronted with larger scale issues. One gets the impression he’d run a spectacular meat raffle: less so a G7 economy.
Not for the first time, Sir Ed Davey’s opening remarks accused the government of copying Lib Dem ideas. Just the phrase ‘Liberal Democrat policy’ drew an automatic laugh from all sides of the House. He then, inevitably, brought up rejoining the single market as a magic panacea for every ill. You can always rely on Sir Ed to make Mr Burnham look like Bismarck.
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