A tightrope PM Burnham must walk
Burnham enters office with a measure of goodwill, as seen in Labour’s polling bounce; he will have to make full use of it.
In his first week as Prime Minister of the UK, Andy Burnham is already grappling with what will be one of his central challenges: Delivering change to a deeply dissatisfied public, from a constrained fiscal position. He has walked back the suggestion that he might raise the tax-free personal allowance, citing “financial circumstances”. He has announced measures to tackle the cost-of-living crisis, including a cap on bus fares and a VAT cut on energy bills, and signalled an increase in defence spending with the appointment of John Healey — who resigned from the Keir Starmer government over its failure to allocate sufficient funds for defence — as chancellor. The same question arises: Where will the money be found? Burnham recognised the constraints early on: After saying last year that the government should not be “in hock” to the bond markets, he changed tack, and pledged to stay with Labour’s fiscal rules. What remains to be seen is how he will thread the needle while delivering growth.
Social cohesion will be another major front for the new PM. He has retained Shabana Mahmood as home secretary, indicating that the government will maintain its much-criticised tough stance on immigration. He needs to face the ethno-nationalist tide, and not be seen to buckle before it. One fallout has been in the poorly managed university sector, which had relied on international students as a cash cow and now faces a severe financial crunch due to visa restrictions. The consequences are playing out in the form of sweeping faculty job cuts, threatening one of the areas where the UK is truly world-leading. The government needs to step in with a plan to rescue and restructure the sector.
Labour has three years before it must face the electorate again. To navigate a historic political realignment, it has to quickly move past the ignominy of Starmer’s ouster and tamp down on factionalism. The challenges of restoring public trust and political stability while walking a fiscal tightrope are steep. Burnham enters office with a measure of goodwill, as seen in Labour’s polling bounce; he will have to make full use of it.
