Andy Burnham has enjoyed a honeymoon first month as UK leader, but the hard trade-offs involved in governing are about to get real for the prime minister as parliament returns from its summer break in the coming days.
Since succeeding Keir Starmer on July 20, Burnham has pleased voters with several low-cost sweeteners, including cutting electricity bills and bus fares, while burnishing his casual man-of-the-people vibes.
He has poured pints of beer with his finance minister, played guitar in Ukraine, and kept up a prolific output of slick social media videos during a self-styled “listening tour” of Britain.
Projecting a sunnier outlook than the straitlaced Starmer, and benefiting from the woes besetting hard-right rival Nigel Farage, Burnham has sparked a poll bounce for his ruling Labour Party.
A YouGov survey published on August 18 found that 46 percent of Britons view him favourably, up 12 percentage points from when he first arrived at Downing Street.
With lawmakers on holiday, the new prime minister has largely been able to avoid thornier issues during his first weeks in office.
“He’s benefited enormously from parliament not being there,” former senior civil servant Jill Rutter told AFP, adding that it had allowed the 56-year-old Burnham to “control the narrative” so far.
MPs return to Westminster on Tuesday, when Burnham is expected to deliver his first speech to parliament as prime minister.
His government is set to announce that day whether it is watering down contentious plans to release thousands of prisoners early to ease chronic overcrowding in jails.
Then on Wednesday, MPs and the public will learn whether Burnham is any good at facing down the weekly grilling by the leader of the opposition when he takes part in his first Prime Minister’s Questions session.
Looming on the horizon is his government’s first budget on October 28, when Burnham must demonstrate that he can fund his pledges regarding cost-of-living support and ending rough sleeping, all while plugging a huge gap in defence spending.
He must do so against a backdrop of strained public finances and with limited levers to pull due to his commitment not to raise income tax, employee payroll contributions, or a value-added tax on consumer goods.
“That might be when reality starts to hit,” former minister Tony McNulty, who served alongside Burnham in Labour governments of the early 2000s, told AFP.
McNulty, now a politics lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, insists Burnham is capable of taking tough decisions and “sticking” to them, despite opponents labelling him a “people pleaser”.
– Trump meeting? –
Plenty of sensitive issues lie ahead, including welfare reform, how to fund social care, and whether to proceed with the scrapping of jury trials for many offences.
Whether to extract oil and gas at the controversial Jackdaw and Rosebank fields in the North Sea could be one of the most divisive questions.
“You either alienate the unions by saying no and get noises off from (US President) Donald Trump in a very unhelpful way,” explained Rutter.
Or Burnham gives drilling a green light and “you alienate the Labour net zero (supporters) who say we’re going to lose more support to the Greens”.
Burnham will host his first European leader since taking office when French President Emmanuel Macron visits London this week.
It comes as he must decide how to proceed with a “reset” with the European bloc that was championed by Starmer ahead of a bilateral summit expected this year.
Burnham has said Britain must be “bolder” in getting closer to the bloc, but has ruled out rejoining the single market, customs union or allowing freedom of movement.
“The EU isn’t handing out sweets just because we’ve got a sort of fun prime minister who likes (1980s English rock band) The Smiths,” added Rutter.
A likely first meeting with Trump, possibly at the United Nations General Assembly next month, will be tricky for Burnham who once described the US president’s policies as “poisonous”.
Labour lawmaker Jess Phillips said on a Sky News podcast last week that Burnham must “show what his actual priorities are” but in doing so runs the risk of disappointing many MPs.
MP Luke Akehurst told AFP that Burnham’s positive start “gives him a significant bank of political capital” among Labour colleagues “who will need to trust his judgement in addressing the range of complex policy issues that the government faces”.
