When it became obvious that Andy Burnham would be the next prime minister if he won in Makerfield, it seemed obligatory for any piece about him to include the recycled joke about a Blairite, a Brownite, a Milibandite and a Starmerite walking into a bar. The punchline: “The barman asks: ‘What are you having, Andy?’”.
Burnham’s speech on Monday was the first time he has given any specific steer. But even that was full of generalities
The joke was certainly over-used but it served a purpose. There has been very little that anyone knows for certain about what Burnham actually stands for. One of the most notable aspects of the soon-to-be-PM’s ascent to Downing Street is that it has been accomplished not through a detailed prospectus of what he would want to do as PM – which, in normal circumstances, would be either a manifesto or, mid-term, through his record as a minister and a leadership election – but with nothing other than ill-defined references to ‘Manchesterism’ and hints by his allies of his attitude to different policy areas.
It may be that he has spent his previous decades as a politician learning and that now, for the first time, we are seeing the real Burnham – the mature leader who knows what he wants to do. But a mere matter of days before he will become PM, we still don’t – to adapt Donald Rumsfeld – know what we do or don’t know about Andy Burnham’s ideas.
