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Tomorrow, Andy Burnham will become Britain’s 59th Prime Minister. The team around him has been strikingly circumspect when it comes to setting out his plans. But this weekend we are starting to get some smoke signals via the Sunday papers. The new PM will back licences for drilling at the Rosebank and Jackdaw gas fields. Thames Water, Britain’s largest water supplier, is likely to be placed in special measures over £18bn owed to creditors. Plans for digital ID and the abolition of jury trials will be scrapped, with the post of AI minister upgraded to cabinet rank. Around a third of the cabinet are expected to be sacked and the Departments for Business and Technology overhauled too.
Like Brown, Burnham will enjoy something of a honeymoon – if only because he is not his predecessor
The transition from Keir Starmer to Burnham has echoes of the handover between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, the last time a Labour leader enjoyed a coronation. On coming to office in 2007, Brown scrapped his predecessor’s more unpopular policies like ID cards, signalling he wanted to be a champion of civil liberties. He stripped back Blair’s perceived excesses, dumping plans for a Manchester ‘super casino’ and a £10 million VIP jet. There were travelling cabinet meetings to reconnect Westminster with the country – an initiative that resembles Burnham’s plans for a ‘No. 10 North.’ Much like Brown, the new PM clearly feels unbound by his predecessor’s commitments and will use the handover to ‘strip the barnacles’ off the government boat.
