Andy Burnham has now been Prime Minister for a week. That is long enough to begin judging not just what he has done, but how he thinks.
So far, what we have seen is a series of relatively small policy announcements on bus fares, temporary energy bill reductions and business rates for pubs. Those may all be worthwhile gestures in themselves, but they raise a much bigger question. Is this really the agenda of someone who wants to reshape Britain?
In this video, I argue that the role of a Prime Minister is fundamentally different from that of a mayor. Mayors operate within rules set by others. Prime Ministers can change those rules. They can change fiscal policy, tax policy, the role of the Bank of England and the priorities of government itself.
If those opportunities are ignored, government risks becoming little more than a manager of inherited constraints instead of an agent for national transformation.
And that matters. Labour needs a coherent economic strategy for dealing with the serious challenges that may lie ahead, from geopolitical shocks to financial instability and energy insecurity.
The point I make is not just about Andy Burnham. There's a bigger issue about the kind of leadership Britain now needs and whether any of our mainstream political parties are prepared to provide it.
Do you think Britain has a government with a genuine long-term plan, or are we seeing politics reduced to a series of short-term gestures?
This is the audio version:
The Debate Ammunition for this video is available here.
This is the transcript:
Andy Burnham has been Prime Minister for a week. Long enough for us to get some idea about the man. The man that we've been offered, the man who's been chosen by the Labour Party to be our Prime Minister, is revealing significant weaknesses. What's the weakness? He's a small thinker. That's his weakness.
This is a man who's playing with small gestures. A small cut to bus fares. A small cut to the cost of electricity for a very limited period of time. A small reduction in the business rates of pubs. But he's not a big thinker.
He's the sort of man who can become a very successful mayor and who can't go any further.
Mayors work within constraints. That's the whole purpose of their role. They govern a small area within the rules that are given to them.
A Prime Minister doesn't work like that. A Prime Minister sets the rules. A Prime Minister doesn't have to have constraints except those which really are imposed by the economy as a whole, because everything is within their legislative remit, if they want.
They can change the rules of the Bank of England.
They can change the fiscal rules.
They can change tax.
They can change spending.
They can change the nature of government departments. They can change a great deal, and Andy Burnham is looking at the small stuff.
What we also know is he's going to continue with the big stuff that was set by Keir Starmer.
Shabana Mahmood stays as Home Secretary, so her racist policies on migration will remain, and racist they are. Let's not bother to discuss that.
Pat McFadden stays at the Department of Work and Pensions, so his attacks on benefits will continue. This is a man who hates the social security system and has got it in for people with disabilities, and he's still in charge of what they get.
We have Andy Burnham saying that Donald Trump can use US Air Force bases in the UK for defensive missions against Iran, but there are no defensive missions against Iran. There are only offensive ones.
And worst of all, his Chancellor with Andy Burnham's explicit backing in Cabinet, has said we are going to stick to the fiscal rules. So, the constraints chosen by government to impose on itself, which always result in austerity, under-investment, and a collapsing range of government services, are going to continue.
Andy Burnham is willing to tweak at the edges, but he's not willing to change the big things. Why then, did he want to be Prime Minister? You only want to be Prime Minister and to put up with the absolutely ghastly lifestyle that goes with it, and all the pressure and all the stress and all the encumbrances of office, because you want to change things.
Changing the bus fare is not a big deal. That's what mayors do.
Changing the rate of VAT on electricity, and not on gas, and not on domestic heating fuel for six months, is not big stuff.
Changing the rules on pubs with regard to business rates, but ignoring cafes and restaurants and other such institutions where there are still burdens being paid by those organisations and businesses, is not changing the big stuff.
In fact, all of those things represent small stuff precisely because the change in the bus fare didn't change the rules which affect commuters.
The change in VAT on electricity did not affect gas and heating oil.
And the change in the business rates on pubs did not affect other places where people meet and which are just as important. He revealed a bias to alcohol, but in practice, most people don't drink in pubs.
The problem is, Andy Burnham can't think outside the box. We now know that. He buys the box, he accepts the box, he accepts the fiscal rules, he accepts what the Treasury tells him. He accepts the household analogy. He accepts that government can only do what the City will let him do, and that is what worries me about this man.
He's literally perpetuating the neoliberal myth and revealing that he has not got the intellectual capacity to even understand the basis on which that myth is built or to do anything about it.
Will Andy Burnham succeed as a result? No, he won't. Andy Burnham will fail.
And we know that Andy Burnham has a crisis coming his way. We aren't quite sure what that crisis is yet, but we know there's a range of them, and one of them will hit.
It could be war in the Gulf and the resulting increase in oil prices, or the consequent shortage of raw material supplies. It could be the gas price arising from the Gulf again. It could be the consequence of the AI bubble bursting, knocking over into a fall in stock market values, knocking over into a banking crisis. It could be something else. But the fact is all of those crises are waiting. In some way or other, one of them is going to hit, and our problem is we have Andy Burnham in office.
I think he was probably a very good mayor of Manchester, even though his bus revolution was no such thing. The buses remained in private hands after all. But he's not a man for the big picture. He's not a man to deal with a national crisis. He's not a man to manage the national economy. He's not a man with a plan, and that is the biggest problem of all.
Like Keir Starmer before him, he's arrived in office and very obviously doesn't know what to do. Keir Starmer did gesture politics when he arrived. He scrapped the winter fuel allowance. That was a stupid move. Andy Burnham has done better. He has made positive rather than negative gestures, but they remain gestures. There is no plan. If there was, he'd be talking about it. If there was, he'd be telling us what is coming. But he isn't, and that tells us quite clearly he doesn't know.
Not knowing is a crime when you're Prime Minister. You're a Prime Minister because you do know. That's what the point of the job is. You are the person who has the answers. You are not the person who has the questions. You are not the person who sits there pondering about what might happen and what advice you're going to get. You are the person who knows. But Andy Burnham isn't.
That's why I'm quite sure he's going to fail as Prime Minister. Labour will fail in this administration. And we face a political crisis in 2029 where at least five parties will all be challenging for government, and with the way that Reform is going, it is likely that almost none of them will reach a 20% voter share because Nigel Farage's days are over as well.
Looking like that, we are absolutely in a political mess in this country. We don't have people who can think. We don't have parties that are coherent. We don't have policies that talk about how people can be permitted to achieve their potential within our society, which is what they want to do. We don't have a commitment to care. We don't have a commitment to flourishing. We don't have an economics of hope. All we have are constraints. Voluntary constraints accepted by most of our mainstream political parties in a way designed to limit our possibilities and to deny us the choices that we really need, about how we can live well.
Living well doesn't mean over-consuming.
Living well does not mean everybody being rich.
Living well means living without stress.
That Is possible even within the constraints that we as an economy face and within the constraints that this planet imposes upon us. But nobody is talking about that, least of all, Andy Burnham.
A £2 bus fare will not remove anyone's stress.
£45 off an electricity bill is not going to change any household budget.
These things are petty. I want a big thinker. I'm not getting it. Where are they? That's what we need. Let's keep talking on this channel about what we can create because, frankly, no one else is, and that's the biggest problem of all.
I wish there was somebody else who was talking about alternative political narratives.
I wish there was somebody else who was talking about how we can do tax better, but I'm not hearing that either. Saying, “Let's tax wealth,” is not a solution because, as Gabriel Zucman admits, a wealth tax can only raise £10 billion when we need more than £1 trillion a year. That's more than a hundred times what a wealth tax can raise. A wealth tax is another example of small-scale thinking.
We need big thinking. We need it now, and that's what we are lacking. I'm trying to create it. I hope you are thinking about it. I hope other politicians are. That's what I think. What do you think? There's a poll down below. Let us have your comments. Please share this video, and we'll see you again soon.
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What are the chances of Binface beating Farage, taking his seat in the house, joining the Labour party and winning a challenge to Burnham? No?….I thought not.
Does anyone know an Instagram influencer with a big following who could be persuaded to sell MMT to the modern youth instead of plastic surgery and fad diets? Alternatively does anyone know how to use AI to create a fake one or make Richard look and sound like Tay Tay? Now I really am getting desperate, but it would all be in a good cause.
We did do an insta yesyerday – for the first time for ages. See @richardjmurphy there.
We need Mark Carney both in thought and actions.
We can do better than that
Not Mark Carney, neoliberalism, again. Please.
OK, I stand corrected.
But who would fit the job that needs to be done?
Richard – you don’t seem to acknowledge that he is only PM because he was put there by the illegally funded Labour Together faction who executed the anti Corbyn coup – as described in Paul Holdens book The Fraud<p>
Josh Simons gave his seat to Burnham – and Simons tried to get Holden declared a security risk , and handed over to MI5 etc.<p>
Given the entanglement of CIA/Mossad/MI5 it is not beyond belief that the security services were involved in the Labour factional takeover<p>
This sounds like conspiracy theory – but there may be some truth in it. Burnham was put there on condition he wouldn’t challenge the system in the way a ‘big thinker’ would.<p>
BBC is playing its part by censoring any debate that could query the ‘government is like a household’ narrative – so ‘there is no money for anything’/’there is nothing Burnham can do’.
Well said – you are right – and I see this all the time in the public sector, people who are controlled downstream of budget decisions and how it affects the world view about fiscal and monetary policy – Burnt Ham is a rule taker, some one working within the constraints imposed on him. He is now the ‘rule maker’ and even ‘rule breaker’? But does he understand this? Or will his mayoral mindset just make him easy to control by the Treasury?
Yep – it’s relevant for sure.
Thanks
Can only agree, these initiatives are so smoke and mirror.
Saw a video clip of a publican hand Andy a large glass of alcohol , never saw the payment made,perhaps it was free. Don’t know how much a pint of beer sells at but likely to be over £5, the pub will be getting a £20 a Month reduction in business rates, he may have just given away 25% of his gain.
My experience is that drinking pubs are closing alongside cafe facilities ,people buy their beers from the supermarket and drink at home, the breath test has a huge effect on travel to pubs.
I checked my last electricity bill vat, I would have saved less than 50p a week, not enough to buy a loaf.
Small thinking indeed.
Wanted: Fiscal rules keeper, to balance the books for UK plc (private limited company).
Workplace: 10 Downing St.
Qualifications: none required. Recruitment, training and on-the-job supervision will be provided by ThinkLabour, formerly known as Labour Together. Must not be called Keir Starmer. Northern regional accent preferred.
Responsibilities: Keeping the Fiscal Rules set by former Chancellor, Rachel Reeves. An abacus will be provided.
Accountability: A monthly report to be submitted to Tel Aviv, Washington, and News UK. A weekly oral report must be provided to Charles Mountbatten-Windsor, and the successful candidate will be required to avoid answering questions in Parliament once a week.
For further details, applicants should contact Josh Simons.
🙂
Yes, what we need is a big thinker.
Our political system doesn’t favour them. If we had one then the media would deride them as not being across the detail. Backbench MPs sweat the little details. They do “constituency work”, they open buildings, attend school sports days, try to address individual problems which they are not qualified or empowered to do. As ministers they have little autonomy. No wonder if they do eventually get to be PM they’ve had the big ideas knocked out of them (if they ever had any – doubtful in most cases).
I’d really like MPs to start doing their job. That is, thinking strategically, thinking big, actually reading proposed legislation, thinking critically, voting for what they believe, not mindlessly following the party whip. That’s what they are there for, not “constituency work” however mediagenic.
As for Mr Burnham, he has a difficult job. Perhaps he has some big ideas, perhaps, probably, not. But in the first week? I think that’s asking a bit much. The little things are good. I’m glad he’s done them. They are far from sufficient, but let’s not demonise the positive because it’s not perfect. As for bigger stuff, we shall see.
I think there is no more.
As I said, if there was it would have been said.
Where is our 21st Century Keynes when you need him.? just realised he was not a politician or government minister but a civil servant in the Treasury . Is there anyone in the Treasury about to break cover with some big thinking.. We have a cabinet that reduces bus fares then loads debt onto third world countries in order to answer the meaningless question “Where’s the money going to come from!!”. When will media challenge Burnham on why is he thinks moving decision making to another location changes the economic system which he says is broken. May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak, Starmer, and Burnham in 10 years no one will remember who they were, none of them seem to want to leave there mark in history as having done something radical and transformative. Develop a new economic narrative and change the structures, Abolish the House of Lords, introduce a new voting system, reform the tax system, there is so much they could do but as you say , no big thinkers. I despair
Keynes was rather more than a civil servant. He was also a Fellow at King’s, Cambridge. Cambridge now has no Keynesians that I am aware of.
As you often say, “Much to agree with”. Particularly disappointing for many will be the permission regarding US bombing of Iran.
There is however one area where AB sounds different (to me) to the last 8 or so PMs, and that is at least a mention of Industrial Strategy. Now some detail would be nice, but in fairness, it’s early days on that.
I am told that it it’s too late for this, that too many nations are now better at manufacturing than we are. My response is that you quickly get better at what you do: you certainly don’t get better at what you don’t do. In industrial employment, young people, remarkably quick on the uptake, acquire transferable skills and get paid, rather than, for too many, spending 3 – 4 years running up an expensive debt. Pre Thatcher there was always interest in the balance of payments. Since her – almost none, but the figures are recorded and they don’t look good. Admittedly I’m not an economist, but I would expect the Balance of Payments to be important in terms of wealth creation. With shrinking wealth creation, governments must be forced into dividing an ever shrinking pie, with unpleasant choices to be made.
So I’m hoping, though far from confident, that there will be some progress on Industrial Strategy. If AB can make progress, then it will ease the government’s choices on budgeting.
WRT your comment on manufacturing Huw (and by extension industrial strategy), there is a very good article by Robin McAlpine published yesterday on the subject of China’s success in this area. I don’t always agree with Robin – he is rather too fond of descisions being made by committee for my taste, but he hits the spot with this :- https://www.commonweal.scot/articles/magazine-ltatt?fbclid=IwY2xjawTQXfNwZG9mAWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAGJyaWQRMHRHTkRDWURwR0NBQmpBY0NzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeVSMyufPGIOg6N6s6qiBTtlJTU-w3Xxqe-ghfvgYZMZ0sxxb-ExTYdsLtb4c_aem_qOwvWRL3_OjzxLEz7YzwdQ
Jeez, give the guy a chance – he’s only been in the job five days!
Yes, so far he’s only dropped a few tidbits, to give a few crumbs of good news.
But he’s promised to soon flesh out his 10 year vision for the UK.
At least permit him that, before you completely write him off.
But how radical can he be without the opposition being able to claim he has no mandate from the electorate?
Better than Starmer? Hopefully.
As Mick sang, you can’t always get what you want
He has wanted this job for at least 15 years.
It has clear he has no more idea why than David Cameron had. Or Starmer. Or Sunak.
Why are you apologising for him?
I’m not apologizing for him. His New Labour background is troubling and yes, that makes me skeptical about how much he will change.
But he’s the first party leader in a long time to openly acknowledge the damage that four decades of neoliberalism has done to the UK.
So I think we should at least give him the opportunity to set out his plan, before writing him off.
It’s not we have an abundance of better options right now, is it?
We could have ….
Yeah, Jagger did sing that but also mentioned about something about getting ‘what you need’ instead.
I don’t see that yet. What do we need? Try this………….
July has been a month of celebration for me with two kids graduating. In the ceremony halls looking at just one school’s worth of graduates, I wondered how much student debt was hanging over each the assembled mortar boards and gowns. And I thought that this is where Burnt Ham needs to be right here right now – at these ceremonies as this very rich country launches its brightest into the world with crippling debt plus compound interest and an economy choked by austerity whilst a line of credit is given to the casino banks through the CBRA. It shows you how much the government values graduates. Too risky apparently.
If Burnt Ham wants to start doing something REAL, lets have a Student Debt Jubilee back dated to 2010. I might just vote for Labour for that. And whilst we are at it, more help for apprentices (used as cheap labour by the economy) to get by too.
But he won’t do this because compound interest rules, a robotic unsubstantiated mechanism for simply moving money to capital, helping to create their wealth. Why else would this society ignore the current issue of students not being able to find work but contentedly watch their debt grow? See this essay from Michael Hudson:
https://michael-hudson.com/2004/01/the-mathematical-economics-of-compound-rates-of-interest-a-four-thousand-year-overview-part-i/
A great deal to agree with. And congratulations to your two.
A ten year plan is fine if you have ten years. Andy Burnham has two.
It’s easy to make ambitious plans that you know you don’t have to carry through!
There I so much he could be saying that would really bring the population on board!
Andy’s big idea (from what I read) , may focus on governance.
Sweeping devolution by default — not piecemeal powers negotiated with Whitehall, but a structural shift where tax, skills, industry and service powers automatically sit closer to regions.
A No 10 North (sic) — a second centre of executive authority in Manchester tasked with redistributing power and resources across the UK.
A German‑style Basic Law — a statutory right to equal living standards, signalling constitutional-level ambition.
Allied with:
Public control of essential services (water, housing, energy, transport) to stabilise living costs.
Largest council housing programme since the postwar period, tied to a Housing First model for homelessness.
Reform of Westminster and Whitehall culture — less adversarial, more empowered backbenchers, and a civil service not dominated by Treasury vetoes.
If true, this is a significant agenda. It is unclear how would this fit with a devolved governance structure.
But let’s be clear, this fits a mould. He is outsourcing decision making because he cannot do it. That is why any Westminster politician does devolution. I would love to think there is more to it. I am not convinced. It is all about complying with rules.
Devolved respnsibilities have to be paid for either by privately created bank lending (extractive as interest is charged), or local taxes, paid for out of already circulating money (also extractive). Both take existing money away from local economies although they may generate some small growth. But they “don’t break the fiscal rules” (hurrah!), and it “isn’t Burnham’s fault if it doesn’t work”.
Sorry – that isn’t a plan. That’s a PR wheeze.
Well put.
Unless, we can use existing money from another source – savings.
The Peter Principle comes to mind – promoted to your level of incompetence.
Imagine if Churchill or Attlee had spent their time wondering what to do.
I am sure you are right but, for all our sakes, I hope you are wrong!
I agree.
I hope I am wrong, too.
It certainly has the feeling of a coup to me
So
Cut the business rates payable by pubs
OK there are only so many things that Government can do in the short term and its headline grabbing.
But what are the costs involved in running any business and how big is Business Rates? What we dont hear about is business rent – and to what extent landlords might benefit by being given a bit of leeway by the business rates cut to increase rents?
Tom Kerridge has said “So what?” To this.
Interesting!
He certainly knows what he’s talking about
Not every PM thinks small.
Japan often pops up on FTF, as something of an economic outlier with regard to national debt/GDP ratio, spending, interest rates etc. – policies that give the lie to constant neoliberal threats of economic collapse unless government cuts spending.
The new LDP gpvernment (with a nice new boosted GE mandate) is getting attention with its increased spending, and arm-wrestling with its central bank. The “Liz Truss insults are flying. MMT advocates have even more reason to take note. I expect if the venture succeeds, the press will then quietly ignore it. I’m not clever enough to evaluate, but it looks interesting. Makes Burnham’s efforts at macro-economics look very feeble.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/25/japan-sanae-takaichi-investment-plan-liz-truss-economy
Does Burnham ‘think big’?, ‘think small’? Does he even think at all! Surely his ‘no VAT on electricity’ scam benefits the rich (i.e. those big consumers with big houses to heat) much more than the poor who already cut their energy use to the minimum?
Or perhaps that was the point all along. ‘Heat the rich’ to coin a phrase.