From glorified council boss to leader of the nation, Andy Burnham has made a remarkable journey over the past few months.
Whether he is actually up to the job is an entirely different matter. The answer will become apparent soon enough as the new parliamentary session gets into its stride.
No one disputes that the Prime Minister has an onerous task ahead of him. As well as problems inherited from his hapless predecessor, he faces a number of emerging challenges.
Turmoil on the gilt markets is threatening to blow a £6billion hole in next month’s Budget. Major retailers are warning that any business tax increases could jeopardise the Government’s cost-of-living drive.
Meanwhile, Keir Starmer’s decision to resign his Holborn and St Pancras seat means there is a by-election campaign to be fought. Mr Burnham must also contend with growing murmurs of discontent from the backbenches.
But it will, of course, be his record of delivery on the headline issues that ultimately defines his premiership. The signs from his first day at the dispatch box as PM fail to offer much hope of any more transparency or accountability than we saw from his predecessor.
From glorified council boss to leader of the nation, Andy Burnham has made a remarkable journey over the past few months. Whether he is actually up to the job is an entirely different matter
It was depressing enough that he failed to give a single meaningful answer on any of five key areas – defence, migration, crime, tax and welfare – put to him by Kemi Badenoch.
But it was even more dispiriting that he sought to blame our current woes on wholly predictable targets such as the politics of the 1980s and Brexit.
That sort of cliched, dogma-ridden rhetoric hardly inspires confidence in what we can expect in the weeks and months ahead. Little surprise that Mrs Badenoch, speaking in the Commons, accused him of ‘living in the past’.
If the PM is serious about providing Britain with proper leadership, then he should accept that not everyone shares his unhealthy obsession with either the Thatcher era or the democratic public vote to leave the EU.
He also needs to realise that hard-pressed taxpayers aren’t in the mood for a blinkered history lesson from the likes of him.
A final U-turn
Best of luck to Keir Starmer as he departs the House of Commons in an entirely fitting manner.
By giving up his seat, he has ended his career as an MP with another flagrant U-turn – the act he refined into an art form during the two dismal years of his premiership.
Yet it seems we haven’t seen the last of him. Sir Keir says he intends concentrating in the days ahead on issues such as defence and security – neither of which appeared to much interest him when he was actually in a position to bolster Britain’s military strength.
The former PM has also spoken about combating offences against women and girls. Given he was the original architect of legislation that will now see stalkers and domestic abusers walking free from jail, this will ring particularly hollow to countless female victims facing a life of fear and dread.
Little about Sir Keir’s shameless remarks will be remotely surprising to anyone who has followed his political journey. It has always been impossible to take anything he says at face value.
