If Andy Burnham has a golden rule, it seems to be this: do the opposite of Keir Starmer. The new Prime Minister has made a habit of differentiating himself from his predecessor. He has backed away from assisted dying and changes to the jury system, purged Starmer loyalists and swapped Eeyoreish despair for Tiggerish hope.
Burnham’s visit to Ukraine this week offered yet another example. While it took Starmer four days to make his first overseas visit as prime minister, Burnham waited four weeks. Both men are keen supporters of Kyiv – yet the new Labour leader clearly wants to do foreign policy differently. ‘I’d rather do my trips with a real reason behind them,’ he said. ‘I’m here for a reason.’
Much of Burnham’s political economy does not translate naturally into the international arena
Within Team Burnham, there are plenty who believe that too much of Starmer’s time was spent clocking up miles attending a cavalcade of summits, rather than driving through an agenda at home. At one point, a sixth of Starmer’s time was spent abroad, as he totted up 49 trips in just two years. ‘It was done to a good end,’ remarks one Labour MP, ‘but while Keir was travelling, he was losing the dressing room in Westminster.’
