My A-Level politics teacher told a story about Harold Wilson that I so wanted to be accurate, I haven’t dared check its provenance until just now. Happily, it’s true: the pipe which was always to be found clamped between the prime ministerial teeth or being brandished expressively in his hand was largely a prop. In private, away from the cameras, he preferred cigars.
That famous pipe not only provided working class credentials to a politician whose first career was in dusty academia, fiddling with it also helped him control his nerves. Remarkably, given modern sensibilities, he would fill and puff away on the thing during television interviews and so convey an image of approachable avuncularity.
Andy Burnham doesn’t have a pipe, but the first major achievement of his premiership is the successful establishment of both working class credentials and approachable avuncularity. And unlike Wilson, his are almost certainly not confected. This may well prove to be the key to seeing off the threats posed by Nigel Farage and, increasingly, Kemi Badenoch.
It is easy to pooh-pooh the prioritisation of style over substance but, as Wilson’s story shows, it is nothing new and is more relevant now than ever. Consider, for example, the case of Ed Miliband, whose appointment as Foreign Secretary constituted the second biggest surprise of Burnham’s first Cabinet.
