In these listless days of Keir Starmer’s premiership, we’re all gasping for a crumb of real news. Ministers of state are being asked to weigh in on whether kids should be allowed to stay up for the England match this weekend, while the rest of the Parliamentary Labour Party is trying to hover around Andy Burnham’s eyeline in case he gives them a job.
Labour, taking a breather after many months of public screeching, has decided to take its dirty laundry indoors.
The selection of James Purnell as chief of staff last week gave us all something to chew over: but until we learn who gets the chancellor brief (Ed Miliband? Yvette Cooper? A secret third thing?) we’re all trying to patch together a sense of the next prime minister’s domestic agenda through set-piece speeches and unofficial briefings.
The MP for Makerfield has been running a tightly controlled operation. He hasn’t taken many questions from the scrum at recent public appearances, preferring instead to sit down on his own terms with Andrew Marr on LBC, post TikToks with varying levels of seriousness, and answer questions on Reddit later this afternoon. It’s a fine balance between not appearing to hide and not tanking your favourability before you even get the keys to Downing Street.
The most substantive announcement from Burnham has been his pledge to set up a “Number 10 North”, an outpost of Whitehall operating in Manchester. Nearly 9,000 civil servants would be working out of Ancoats, though a temporary office space would be set up until the full development is completed (ETA 2032).
It’s no secret that the former mayor of Manchester is a devolution ultra – and the prospect of having more powers when it comes to revenue, infrastructure and housing provision could be something that tempts Sadiq Khan to run for a fourth term. Though decentralisation is mostly framed as distributing wealth and power away from London, it’s more fair to say that it disempowers Westminster.
As well as building Manc-A-Lago, we know that Burnham intends to build more council housing, and deal with the cost of living crisis by clamping down on (but not necessarily nationalising) privatised utilities. But what about taxation and foreign policy, the two areas in which the Green party under Zack Polanski have landed the biggest punches on Labour?
This morning’s edition of the Times leads with Burnham’s comments about there being room for “movement on tax”, while still upholding Labour’s manifesto commitment on not increasing VAT, national insurance, or income tax.
So, where’s the money coming from? There’s little solid to go on – but Burnham has previously floated an overhaul of the council tax system, potentially replacing it with a new land value tax that would fall most heavily on wealthier areas such as London and the southeast. In the past, he has stated that work is overtaxed while assets are undertaxed, prompting speculation that he could raise capital gains tax and align it with income tax.
Regarding the latter, Burnham has yet to give any indication of an interest in foreign policy, let alone his approach to it. He has – so far – avoided any significant departures from the Starmerite line when it comes to Gaza, said nothing about how he’ll deal with Donald Trump, and has been bounced into the Defence Investment Plan (and forking out an extra £5bn) because he doesn’t have a stall to set out when it comes to Russia.
Supporters might say that this is a wise, tactical call not to fight every battle at once. Detractors would argue that when it comes to the biggest moral issues of the day, Burnham is little more than continuity Keir.
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