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\n Photo by Christopher Furlong \/ POOL \/ AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\n Photo by Christopher Furlong \/ POOL \/ AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
A number of interpretations of Burnhamism can be found on the loose in the wild right now. The take from the right is that he\u2019s an old-style tax-and-spend leftie who\u2019ll lead us to ruin; but since the people pushing this line are defenders of a failed ideology who have neither government\u2019s nor public\u2019s best interests at heart, this we can safely ignore. Another is that it\u2019s just Starmerism with better comms. The retention of Shabana Mahmood at the Home Office, and Bridget Phillipson in the equalities brief, does suggest there\u2019ll be no change of direction on some of the social issues \u2013 treating immigrants like human beings; trans rights \u2013 that have done so much damage. So. Maybe.<\/p>\n
But then again, maybe not \u2013 because in other areas, the new regime has made noises suggesting a more significant departure. In Burnham\u2019s sincere enthusiasm for devolution, and his claim he\u2019ll spend his political capital on social care reform \u2013 the biggest block to local government that can actually, in any way, govern \u2013 there\u2019s a glimpse of a genuine prescription for what\u2019s gone wrong and how to fix it. Actually fixing it is a different matter, of course, but after two years of a Labour prime minister who seemed to think that everything was in some way fine, it brings a tear to the eye to have a leader with any such ambition at all.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s another, more immediate departure from Starmerism: the visible determination to have Something To Announce. Week one has brought a flurry of promises, leaving the Today programme scrambling to rethink its agenda in exactly the way July of 2024 did not. VAT cut from electricity bills, bus fares capped, more tax relief aimed at pubs and music venues\u2026 None of these are huge measures in themselves, of course, but together they paint a picture of a government actively engaged in trying to make life better. The inevitable vox pops suggest that the great British public \u2013 or at least, the bit of it available to chat in a shopping centre of an afternoon \u2013 is exactly as grateful for this effort as one would imagine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The most significant of these early promises was the first, made before the new Prime Minister even passed the threshold of Downing Street. The return of rough sleeping \u2013 a very visible crisis in the early 1990s that was, not incidentally, largely eradicated by the last Labour government \u2013 is not merely a stain on the nation\u2019s conscience, but a horribly visible symptom of national decline. If the government can end it, it won\u2019t just be the vulnerable people brought back into the warm who\u2019ll benefit. The streets will feel safer; the country more prosperous. And Andy Burnham will have shown that the government can still make things better.<\/p>\n
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