Watching Andy Burnham in Manchester, dressed in his T-shirt and jacket and pronouncing the return of a more old-fashioned, pro-worker left, I had a sense of déjà vu. I had seen this movie before, but with different accents. For the politician Burnham obviously resembles is not British at all – it is Joe Biden.
Just like Biden, Andy Burnham’s self-image is based on the idea that those on the left are the tribunes of ordinary working people, not progressive elites. Like Joe Biden, Andy Burnham is a provincial throwback to an earlier time, just from the North West, not the Midwest. Just like Biden, Burnham rails against the ‘neoliberal’ changes of the 1980s, which he blames for the economic problems of today. Burnham’s idea of a reindustrialised Britain copies Joe Biden’s 2021 infrastructure and regional growth push. And like Joe Biden, Andy Burnham wants to transcend the unpopularity of progressive realities – from rapid decarbonisation to mass immigration – not by reversing these agendas, but by shifting the political debate to areas more favourable to the left.
Just like Biden, Andy Burnham’s self-image is based on the idea that those on the left are the tribunes of ordinary working people
In his speech on Monday, Burnham argued that the country’s failures began 40 years ago, at the height of the Thatcher government. But, as he noted in a separate part of his speech, the economic stagnation we are stuck in began around 2008 – or about ten years into the modern progressive era that his former employer, Tony Blair, ushered in.
The problem, then, for Burnham, just as it was for Biden, is that the heart of our failures is not the free-market changes of the 1980s, but the progressive policies that began in the 1990s and really started to bite a decade or so after. If this progressive framework drives our failures, then Burnham’s agenda is doomed because, like Biden, he cannot tackle it head-on.
And Biden’s failure was substantial. Ezra Klein noted in the Wall Street Journal that Biden’s 2021 infrastructure law ‘was supposed to pump hundreds of billions into roads, bridges, rural broadband, electric vehicle chargers. By 2024, few of its projects were finished or installed.’ Klein notes the most extreme cases, such as £42 billion on broadband that didn’t connect a single person by 2024, are so bad that they are hard to believe.
This failure was not because of bad luck. Building things in the US – and here in the UK – means navigating a dysfunctional and progressive government system. In the UK, almost every pound the state spends, or planning application the private sector makes, has to consider, among other things, the impact on racial and sexual inequity, improving the environment and tackling social inequalities. Given the many layers of bureaucracy that result, failure is inevitable.
Burnham doesn’t seem to see this as a problem. To take one example, his speech called for ‘proper’ social value tests for government procurement. The social value test is a typical ‘progressive conservative’ measure introduced by the Cameron government, where procurement is measured against a largely pointless and bureaucratic set of tests.
The current social value test guidance sets out five missions (such as ‘make Britain a clean energy superpower’), with further subcategories, often with a progressive slant. Under the mission to ‘kick-start economic growth’ it talks about ensuring diverse voices are heard at work and modern slavery. If this is not strict enough, I’d hate to see what Burnham wants to replace it with.
Then there is Burnham’s Biden-style attempt to avoid the topics that are harming the left – such as mass immigration, multiculturalism, the denigration of patriotism, or the lunacy of net zero. It was telling that there was no mention of immigration, for example, in Andy Burnham’s speech last Monday. But while it is sometimes possible to keep these issues off the front pages, it doesn’t mean they are going away. Biden’s approach failed because you can’t just ignore these issues and hope them all away.
For the very thing that prevents us building the better society that Biden or Burnham want is the progressive ideology that seeps through everything. More progressive mayors and local bureaucrats won’t change our malaise – just look at Sadiq Khan and London’s housing mess, where Khan has overseen fewer homes relative to housing need than any other region.
You cannot solve our economic problems without taking on the progressive ideology that smothers our economy, society and government. Burnham – just like Biden – will not fix things because his progressive supporters on the left and their ideas are not the solution, but the root cause, of our problems.
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