What a strange summer this has turned out to be: no rain and no politics. As we enter what the broadcast media are calling the fifth ‘heatwave’ of the year – a heatwave is what used to be known as a hot day or two – the green, green grass has become yellowy stubble. And the sphere of public life is similarly arid and uncanny.
While it’s usual for the party political world to take a breather in the summer months, the unique circumstances of the switch of prime minister just before the rain stopped falling has given summer 2026 a spooky quality. It feels like we’re all in a dream world. And nobody is further in that dream than Andy Burnham, insulated as he is from the usual processes of scrutiny.
The Burnham comms have been lauded by some commentators, perhaps unwisely. I’m afraid that to me they seem laughably unfit for the seriousness of the moment
To fill the couple of weeks left before the flow of time must inevitably splutter back into gear again, Andy – back from his own holidays – is planning a magical mystery tour of the nation. We are told he will be popping up in various places around the land, in ‘listening mode’, getting to know his subjects. This suggests less the progresses of Good Queen Bess than the Radio 1 Roadshow; an affable moron rocking up in a different town every day to play some awful records and chatter inanely. Like Peter Powell and Simon Bates, Andy will be giving out stingy little prizes to lucky attendees. In his version, these will be policies to ease the cost of living rather than your choice of one of the current top ten singles. Whether Lucy Powell will be featured as ‘Smiley Miley’ – the aide who counted the distance between Radio 1’s stops and gave a tape recorder to whoever came nearest in their estimate – is as yet unclear.
