When he became prime minister this summer, Andy Burnham promised to end 40 years of neoliberalism. It was a bold declaration, and stood in contrast to the dull managerialism and endless staged relaunches by his predecessor, Keir Starmer.
But less than 50 days since he became PM, it is clear that Burnham is failing to live up to his promise. He has backtracked on a number of key policy pledges that would mark out his premiership as something different to Starmer’s.
These include a U-turn on a cap on large political donations that Burnham had previously pledged to back; abandoning support for rent controls to halt ever-rising housing costs for millions of private tenants; dropping his pledge that all investment in housing would go to council and affordable homes; and stalling the nationalisation of sewage-dumping Thames Water over its dire performance and ever-rising bills.
Amid unprecedented drought, heatwaves and wildfires, Burnham is strangely unable to talk about a climate emergency.
On international affairs, we await decisive action to sanction Israel over its ongoing atrocities in Gaza, and settler terrorism in the occupied West Bank. Strong words from Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband will need to be followed by actions, but Labour’s close ties to Israel over many decades – and Burnham’s inability to call a genocide a genocide – make such a move appear unlikely. Meantime, Benjamin Netanyahu describes the UK as "The Islamic State of Britain".
