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Andy Burnham, who will be prime minister this time next week, has apparently decided to spend part of the summer touring the UK. He wants to win over voters across the country by offering them a ‘hopeful’ message. What planet do Burnham and his merry band of sycophants live on? Do they really think that spreading positivity is the cure for the country’s many ills? Please, Andy, spare us. Life is already tough enough as it is.The Burnham tour will apparently focus on Labour ‘danger zones’ (it may come as news to him that the entire country outside his Greater Manchester bastion is an unsafe space for Labour right now) where the party has been losing support to Reform. Other areas being prioritised in this madcap political propaganda exercise include Aberdeen, where Labour’s North Sea oil and gas policy has led to a haemorrhage in support.
Burnham is also expected to visit so-called ‘left behind’ areas where voters have seen little in the way of the change promised by Keir Starmer in the 2024 general election. He will also target regions in the south of England and Wales during his public walkabout, scheduled to take place during the second half of the Westminster summer recess. It has been described by Labour insiders as the ‘don’t look back in anger tour’, helping to reset relationships with voters using an upbeat message, intended as the opposite to Keir Starmer’s early days in office which were filled with doom and gloom about the mess inherited from the Conservatives. As if. It is not happy-clappy stuff that voters want. What people actually crave from their political leaders is competence, ideas and concrete help to make their lives better. On all this, and more, Burnham remains a blank sheet. No amount of carefully orchestrated political ‘meet and greets’ can disguise this.
