How do you solve a problem like Andy? Schrödinger’s very own guest feline at the Labour party conference in Liverpool. The man who is both there and not there.
Not invited on to the main stage, but the star attraction at countless fringe events. The man no cabinet minister dares mention by name, yet who is seemingly buried deep in everyone’s subconscious. Living rent-free in the heads of Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves. The man who is making a leadership bid and not making a leadership bid. Andy Burnham is the man who likes to have it every which way.
You also have to ask yourself why these things keep happening to Andy. It just doesn’t seem fair somehow. There he was just giving a front page interview to the Daily Telegraph on the eve of the conference about how the government was lacking leadership and needed a change of direction, and somehow people just jumped to the conclusion that he was putting himself in the frame to be the next prime minister.
There he was giving a 5,000-word interview to the editor of the New Statesman just before the party conference in which he spelled out his vision for Britain, and yet again people put two and two together and make five, assuming he is positioning himself to replace Keir.
And there he was talking to various broadcast outlets about how various Labour MPs had been begging him to quit as mayor of Greater Manchester and return to Westminster as the leader-in-waiting. From king of the north to top of the world, ma. And still people were talking behind his back, saying the guy has designs on Keir’s job. Just how much more unlucky can Andy get?
You might conclude that Burnham is a shit conspirator. A good plot requires organisation and timing. His has had nothing but ambition going for it. His immediate leadership bid was all but dead on arrival. There was no momentum. If he had friends in high places, they thought better of making themselves known. For now.
Maybe the Andy drum will beat louder next May if Labour suffers a wipeout in the Welsh, Scottish and regional elections. For now he stays in Manchester.
But what you can’t deny is that Andy has a charm that many other leaders just don’t have. He is a good storyteller – essential for any politician – and is at ease with himself. Where Starmer and Kemi Badenoch appear awkward in public, Andy comes across as a regular kind of guy. Even when you know he’s not. He’s a politician through and through. A man who has always had one eye on the big prize. Yet somehow you forgive him for it. Even when you suspect he’s telling you what you want to hear.
Those qualities were all on show on Monday at a fringe event organised by the Guardian. He was just having a low-key conference, he insisted. Hadn’t been out at any bars. Was looking forward to going to the football that night.
Leadership campaign? That was all just a big misunderstanding. He had merely been trying to be helpful, but somehow things had all got a bit out of hand. The Telegraph interview had been overwritten and inaccurate. Who would ever have imagined that a rightwing paper might do that to a Labour politician? The very idea.
Andy leaned in. Daring the audience to fall into his eyes. There wasn’t a disloyal bone in his body. In the past week he had been working tirelessly behind the scenes with survivors so the government could announce its Hillsborough law at the conference. You couldn’t say fairer than that. All he wanted was for Labour to put its best foot forward at next year’s elections. To give councillors a decent story to tell on the doorstep. To offer a hopeful alternative to the division and discrimination of Reform. As I said, Burnham is good at stories.
And no, he had never suggested that Labour break its fiscal rules and stop worrying about the bond markets. He would never borrow to spend. Merely to invest in more social housing. The thing you needed to know about the fiscal rules was that they were elastic. Here was the thing. The stronger the fiscal rules, the more you could bend them to your will. He made it sound all very plausible. His sentences washed over you. You wanted to believe.
He did have one small criticism of the current government. Back in the Blair-Brown years, dissent among Labour MPs was tolerated. That was healthy. Now not so much. But look, Andy had some sympathy for Keir. Labour had inherited an economy that was on its knees and it was always going to be hard to turn things round. Especially within a year. It was just that time was not on Labour’s side. People needed change they could feel and recognise. Andy’s change.
Now Burnham was on a roll. Out came some old favourites. Cheaper rail and bus fares. More social housing. The end of the two-child benefit cap. Electoral reform. All crowd pleasers. All easy to offer. Not so easy to deliver. But that wasn’t the point. With Nigel Farage you have to fight fire with fire. Promise the world. Work out how to make it happen later. It’s all about the plausibility.
We ended back where we started. With Andy insisting a leadership challenge – why did people keep bringing this up? – had never been on the cards. “I’m Manchester through and through,” he said. “I’m not a Westminster person.”
That’s odd. He certainly sounds like one. Maybe it’s just that he’s one of those guys who these things happen too. Some people are born great. Some achieve greatness. Others have greatness thrust upon them.
“I’m just trying to be helpful,” he said again as the packed audience began to disperse. Hmm. If this is him being helpful, I dare say Starmer wouldn’t want to encounter him when he’s being difficult.
The Bonfire of the Insanities by John Crace (Guardian Faber Publishing, £16.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
