Within a few weeks, we will have a new Prime Minister in Andrew Burnham, but, just like Keir Starmer before him, he doesn’t seem to have a plan to govern. In his keynote speech on Monday setting out his pitch for the top job, his big idea seems to be shuffling powers between politicians and moving parts of the civil service to the North of England. This isn’t going to grow the UK economy. What we need are policies to cut taxes, fix welfare, deliver energy security and invest in defence.
The job of Prime Minister of one of the world’s largest economies is a very different job to being a city mayor. In many ways, Andy Burnham is untested for the top job. He has no mandate from the public or even a mandate from the Labour Party, as it looks like the leadership contest with be uncontested. While he gave a speech on Monday, Andy Burnham refused to take a single question from the media, so continues to evade any questions about what he will do when he becomes Prime Minister in mid-July.
Andy Burnham seems to have cultivated this populist image predicated on never wearing a shirt and tie, as if this makes him more like one of us. He clearly feels he has tapped into a sense that Manchester feels forgotten by MPs, so has announced that part of the Number 10 operation will be based in Manchester. This seems bizarre and I really don’t see how this will make a positive difference to the way government is run and the services the public experience. The Welsh Government set up offices around Wales to spread out civil service jobs in the early 2000s and it made no difference to delivery, except for increasing running costs as we’re now paying for multiple half-empty offices in Merthyr Tydfil, Llandudno and Aberystwyth.
In his speech, he talked about transferring powers from central government to elected mayors and potentially creating even more politicians. The experience from Wales and Scotland is that devolution does ensure decisions are made closer to the people, but that in itself does not improve the standard of services.
After Brexit, the last thing the UK needs is constitutional change, which would distract the civil service and politicians from the real priorities of growing the economy, fixing welfare, cutting taxes, delivering energy security and investing in defence.
