Andy burnham

Wednesday

Tim Shipman

Andy Burnham can’t afford to please everyone

From our UK edition

Andy Burnham thinks his critics need a new joke about him. The old one about a Blairite, a Brownite and a Corbynite walking into a bar (‘Hello, Mr Burnham,’ says the barman) is about to be eclipsed. On Monday, it won’t be a barman offering good wishes – it will be the Cabinet Secretary, Antonia Romeo, when Burnham walks into No. 10 as Britain’s 59th prime minister. Before that, on Friday, Burnham will accept the leadership of the Labour party, unopposed, at the headquarters of the Trades Union Congress. The speech he will give is still being worked on, but Burnham is ‘holding the pen himself’, aides say.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Burnham’s triumph, the IRGC proscribed and babies called Andrew 

From our UK edition

Home Police launched a murder inquiry into the death of Ann Widdecombe, the former MP, aged 78. Her body was found with head wounds at her house on Dartmoor. They arrested a 28-year-old white British man in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. Counter-terrorism police took over the investigation two days later and rearrested the suspect on suspicion of commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. Police called it a ‘targeted’ attack. She had been a minister in Sir John Major’s administration, an MEP for the Brexit Party and, since 2023, a member of Reform, serving as its immigration and justice spokesman.

Macron Starmer
Gavin Mortimer

Europe’s centrists are falling one by one

Few in France will have been as devastated by their team’s defeat in last night’s World Cup semi-final as Emmanuel Macron. The president put on a brave face, tweeting his congratulations to Spain and thanking the French team "for carrying our colors with commitment." But how Macron must have dreamed of a French World Cup triumph in Sunday’s final. He would have been in New Jersey – as he was in Moscow in 2018 when the Bleus won the World Cup –dancing a jig as his bête noire, Donald Trump, presented the trophy to his boys. Macron's presidency is ending with a whimper In a sense the French football team are a metaphor for Macron’s presidency.

The Spectator

Letters: bring on devolution

From our UK edition

The right kind of devolution Sir: Your leading article ‘The Burnham Question’ (11 July) suggests that the putative prime minister’s enthusiasm for devolution might be a good thing, provided that it is the right kind of devolution. Although Andy Burnham would never admit it, devolution of the Manchester and Teesside type succeeds because, in both cases, business is given the chance to thrive. By contrast, devolution to the Scottish parliament and Senedd has stifled economic growth, while providing a platform for nationalist politicians to bash the UK. A true believer in effective devolution would scrap these national institutions and transfer power to business-friendly bodies in cities and regions across the UK.

Martin Vander Weyer

Count Binface has shown Burnham how to make a manifesto

From our UK edition

Count Binface’s manifesto, made for Makerfield and tweaked for Clacton, is a rare point of light in today’s Stygian political landscape. Could there be a more concise satirical takedown than ‘I will cut your taxes and raise everyone else’s’ or a sharper transport policy than ‘Wifi on trains that works; also trains that work’? This weekend offers a last chance for mischief-makers to suggest a matching agenda for Andy Burnham, before the real ragbag of inner-Labour compromise is unveiled over the coming weeks. Here’s my four-point contribution. First, don’t nationalise anything, not even Thames Water.

Wednesday

Alex Morton

Andy Burnham is Britain’s Biden

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.

andy burnham
James Heale

Labour politicians make the pilgrimage to St Andy

From our UK edition

Warm wine, small talk and curling canapés have long defined the Westminster summer scene. But regime change has added a certain frisson to the party circuit this year. As many of Labour’s finest toasted America’s semiquincentennial at the US ambassador’s house last week, the hostility radiating from Keir Starmer’s No. 10 team was unmistakable. ‘I’ve had them shooting daggers at me all night,’ complained one rebel MP, amid toasts to the revolution. ‘It’s over guys, you lost.’ As fireworks exploded overhead, another added: ‘The king is dead, long live the king.’ The Prime Minister’s decision to step down, paving the way for Andy Burnham’s coronation, has spared his party plenty of pyrotechnics.

Charles Moore

Prince Harry and Nigel Farage have more in common than they might like to admit

From our UK edition

At about 2 p.m. on Tuesday, two cases with a common characteristic coincided. One was Nigel Farage’s long statement about why he would resign his seat to fight a by-election. The other was the defeat of the privacy action against the Daily Mail brought by Prince Harry and others. The link is not in content, but in attitude. In both cases, the main actors in the drama are paranoid and solipsistic. Mr Farage, trying to deflect questions about the men who give him money, spoke for about 20 minutes of the wrongs done him by the ‘Establishment’ and the media. He was particularly worked up about his security. The Prince’s case was that he had been intruded upon by dark and powerful media forces. It was all mixed up with his resentments against his father the King and his courtiers.

The Spectator

Beware Andy Burnham’s ‘devolution revolution’

From our UK edition

Andy Burnham is a lucky politician. And Nigel Farage has just given him another piece of surprising good fortune. The Reform leader’s decision to call a by-election so his voters can express their preference for him over a comedian in a dustbin is more than just a narcissistic farce: it is a blessing for Project Burnham. Just as attention should be focused on a man with neither a mandate nor a manifesto for running the nation, Westminster’s gaze is directed once more to the dreary beachfronts of Jaywick and Frinton. Burnham’s unscrutinised, unelected, unready administration moves closer to power while Reform achieves a feat hitherto thought impossible: becoming even more of a vehicle for the ego of its leader.

Oliver Shah

London’s slump won’t last

From our UK edition

I left the Sunday Times a year ago to create a CEO reputation advisory firm. Sir Philip Green, the former retail tycoon with whom I fought a running battle, apparently rang a mutual friend and said: ‘I hear he’s going into PR – he should try adding ICK to that.’ More constructive advice came from a property entrepreneur, who told me that my emotional and financial volatility was about to be ‘massively heightened’. That turned out to be very true. When the methadone of your final PAYE payslip cuts out, reality kicks in. But winning clients, and looking after them, is amazingly rewarding. And even when you have a bad day, it’s your bad day. Newcome Advisory celebrated its first birthday last week.

Peter Jones

Lessons in oratory for Andy Burnham

From our UK edition

A Mr Burnham, A.M. (Andrew Murray) fancies being PM and Labour MPs have decided to humour him. Needing to assert what a democratic triumph this is, they will welcome ideas from Menander, the ancient Greek orator. Menander would suggest starting their acclaim as follows: ‘With favourable omens have you come to us, as splendid as a bright day of sunshine, appearing to us from on high. A welcome report announced your auspicious arrival and the good fortune that your subjects had fervently prayed for.’  MPs should then explain why he is needed, not slandering the previous leader but suggesting the subjects were unhappy, and go on: ‘Just as if night and darkness had held the world in its grip, you appeared like the sun to our eyes and scattered all our hardships at once.

Wednesday

The Spectator

Burnham’s unwillingness to face the media should worry us all

From our UK edition

There are so many hopes invested in Andy Burnham’s premiership that disappointment is inevitable. In some cases, it is also desirable. The member for Makerfield has been co-opted by Labour’s soft left and communitarian right for their respective agendas. To govern will be to choose. But a particularly poisoned chalice has been proffered to the next prime minister, one he should dash from his lips. Of all the figures on the left who made the pilgrimage to Makerfield to campaign, the presence of Hugh Grant was most ominous. Perhaps the actor who played the prime minister in Love Actually with such élan was there to school our would-be premier on how to deal with obstreperous American presidents. But Hugh Grant is not just a more metrosexual Cary Grant.

Charles Moore

‘No. 10 North’ won’t work

From our UK edition

It would be dangerously premature to say that Ukraine is winning the war with Russia, but Russia is undoubtedly doing worse. Ukrainian ingenuity and courage are outsmarting Russian mass. Ukraine has the advantage in technology, especially drone technology, and morale. The Black Sea fleet is held in port and Russian-occupied Crimea is now insecure. This is becoming apparent even on the streets of Moscow and St Petersburg. So what, I wonder, will western apologists for Vladimir Putin, led by Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, say if his situation worsens further? Will they still back him as the upholder of Christian values against the decadent West and champion of Russia’s historic territorial rights and its need for security?

Tim Shipman

Reform is right to fear the return of Boris

From our UK edition

The man from Reform had barely sat down at our table at the French bistro when he leant forward conspiratorially and asked: ‘What’s Boris up to?’ The suspicion that Boris Johnson, Britain’s 55th premier, must be up to something is a familiar one. For the first time in several years, however, the question is interesting. And the fact that Reform is raising it gives a small insight into the current state of politics. The query came just hours after Johnson had taken to Instagram to mark the tenth anniversary of the Brexit referendum, the defining moment of his career and of our politics since. The 17.4 million voters who backed the Leave campaign were right to do so, he said, before going on to hail the freedoms of Brexit.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: No. 10 heads north, Stokes retires and earthquakes hit Caracas

From our UK edition

Home Andy Burnham, who was expected to become prime minister on 20 July, took off his tie and put on a dark T-shirt for a speech in which he said he would establish a ‘No. 10 North’ in Manchester as the ‘nerve centre of a rewired Britain’. He promised council houses, welfare reform and ‘good growth in every postcode’ by means of ‘Manchesterism’. He took no questions. Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, presented the delayed defence investment plan, and said that spending would rise by £15 billion by 2030. He landed his successor with £4.7 billion of the sum being left unfunded. The Ministry of Defence would also have to find £10.7 billion in efficiency savings in the next four years.

The Spectator

What kills more: heat or cold?

From our UK edition

Absolute mayor Andy Burnham wants more devolution and elected mayors. Do voters want that? – Since 2001 there have been 55 referendums on whether to establish the post of elected mayor. Only in 17 cases was there a majority in favour. – The towns and districts keenest on having an elected mayor were Middlesbrough (84% in favour), Croydon (80%) and Mansfield (70%). – The areas least keen on an elected mayor were Guildford (81% against), Bath (79%) and West Devon (77%). Ratings game Which attracts the biggest TV audience in Britain: Wimbledon or the World Cup? – England’s opening match in this World Cup, vs Croatia, attracted a peak audience of 15.4m. England’s quarter-final defeat to France in 2022 had an audience of 19.4m. – This compares with the 8.

Martin Vander Weyer

Storm warnings for Burnham from the weathermen of Basel

From our UK edition

Reading the annual economic report of the Bank for International Settlements while lying beside a pool with an Aperol spritz in hand is a challenge I accepted on your behalf. Based in Basel as a hub for the world’s central banks, BIS is always careful in its prose for fear of setting cats among global pigeons. But this year’s bulletin is a serious storm warning, based on four factors that in a worst-case combination could trigger market mayhem. First, inflation driven by Middle East conflict has left oil market imbalances that will take ‘several quarters to purge’, with the risk of further volatility; BIS doesn’t actually say ‘If Trump goes batshit crazier’, but that’s the subtext.

The Spectator

Letters: Burnham is a master brand-builder

From our UK edition

Telling stories Sir: As a filmmaker by training and a marketer by profession, I couldn’t agree more with your leading article (‘Northern soul’, 27 June) on the absence of narrative in our politics. The appeal of figures such as Burnham and Nigel Farage lies in the storyworld they build around themselves – be it via pints shared down the pub, off-the-cuff honesty, or a Monty Python line landing in the Commons. But the PM who stays the course, as any brand-builder learns the hard way, must know two things: their own story, well enough to tell it plainly; and the people they speak to, well enough for them to make it their own. Aim a dull narrative at everyone and you reach no one; tell a story worth sharing and both left and right will see themselves in it.

Saturday

Henry Jeffreys

The secret to dressing exceptionally well

As I scribble these words on a train to London, I’m wearing a lightweight Italian wool suit, a shirt from Gieves & Hawkes, a silk spotty tie and a pair of Church’s suede brogues. You might mistake me for a prosperous Neapolitan gentleman of a certain age. But in fact, I’m a charity-shop dandy – my outfit came to less than £60. That’s less than a pair of new trainers for my teenage daughter. I’m particularly pleased with the shoes, which I picked up locally for £30. A new pair would set you back £700. If you’re not too grand to buy secondhand, it’s actually far easier and cheaper for men to dress smartly than to be slovenly. I learned this important fact in my early twenties.

dressing
andy burnham
Charles Moore

Even Andy Burnham doesn’t know what Andy Burnham stands for

The British constitution is an admirably flexible thing, so I would not claim that Andy Burnham’s leadership campaign, and the coverage thereof, is unconstitutional, but it is certainly unseemly. Why did a BBC helicopter follow his train from Manchester to London (which arrived, of course, late) as if he were Lenin heading for the Finland Station? And why was he allowed to preempt his result with a mass selfie with about 200 of his supporting MPs in Westminster Hall? He is merely a new Member of Parliament, until he isn’t. Turning the place into his stage set is a way of intimidating possible challengers. If he is challenged, he will surely still become leader, but the point of a challenge is to force him to say what he means to do.