There should be no surprise that Andy Burnham exchanged messages with someone posing as Donald Trump’s chief of staff.
Downing Street will not say what form the communication took. Most probably, it was on social media. The official line is that “only a few messages” were exchanged and no conversation occurred. Which is odd, because in many people’s eyes a few messages – note the lack of a precise number so we can judge – does constitute a conversation, albeit one that is cursory.
The lack of shock is that Burnham would be so willing to connect and his chosen method was social media. Because he seems to be glued to his mobile screen, always willing to voice an opinion, permanently ready to shoot a selfie. Take the death of Jason Arday, the University of Cambridge professor accused of obtaining his doctorate by plagiarism and lying on his CV. The Prime Minister felt compelled to comment, saying the case was “a tragedy on so many levels”.
Profound and insightful, he was not. It’s still early days in the Burnham reign but there is a gnawing feeling this is what it's going to be like: pandering to populism, a desperation to be liked by all the people all the time.
How else to explain his relentless barrage of TikTok videos and photo opportunities? He announces a reduction in business rates for pubs. There he is, sitting with his Chancellor, John Healey, discussing which type of snacks they prefer. It’s matey and jolly, ignoring the fact that the cut amounts to just £1,000 ($1,350) a year and no pub will be saved from closure as a result – as one landlord said, no bar went to the wall for the sake of £1,000.
Same with the high street. UK bricks-and-mortar retailing, like hospitality, is in a mess, due to a combination of factors. Shops are shuttering, well-known names are disappearing, city and town centres are becoming forlorn places compared to how they were once were. It’s a deep-rooted problem.
What does Burnham do? Declare that vape shops and barbers, which have sprung up everywhere, should be banned. It makes for an easily grasped intervention, giving the impression of someone who is tough and decisive.
But those vape shops and barbers are, in the main, not doing anything illegal – they are all subject to inspection by the authorities. The bigger issue, which he fails to address, is why they are there at all. The answer is because they can be, because they occupied premises that were vacated. What he should be tackling is why were they empty, what causes established retailers to close.
On he goes, though, saying blithely he’d like to see the return of bakers. These must be the independent bread-makers that have been ground-down by supermarkets and online deliveries, and given up.
The trouble with his approach is these were billed as major news items – broadcasters were told to prepare; the media was on full alert. There have been others, such as the ‘Number 10 North’ initiative, under which he opened an office in Manchester, complete with a backdrop, for imagery again, of the famous black door, to which the word ‘North’ had been added.
If only the Prime Minister and those around him devoted more time and effort to the things that really matter. Best, too, if he hasn’t got something genuinely significant to say then don’t say it at all.
It’s catching – this week, we’ve had Angela Rayner proclaiming she would like to see land around railway stations used for homes. Similarly, that will not remotely solve the UK’s housing crisis. It does, though, produce a headline and a picture.
Near where I live, in south-west London, there is the vast, old Mortlake Brewery site. It’s now used as a film set, as would-be developers grapple with the sums and the convoluted planning laws. Latest is, they can’t make it work for now, so it will remain mothballed. It’s within sight of Mortlake Station, only a two-minute walk away. By any stretch it qualifies for Rayner’s initiative, but the minister stating what she will do and what she will actually deliver are poles apart.
Perhaps the apotheosis so far of the Burnham administration’s keenness to be seen to be active and busy, was last Friday evening, when everyone’s mobiles suddenly went off with a government alert not to use disposable barbecues in the current dry weather. They can cause wildfires, don’t you know. It was surreal. I was in the cinema when our phones started blaring. The shrieking of a system designed to warn of enemy attack or other urgent common threat was bizarre and unnecessary.
There have been noises and banalities, too, directed against solving homelessness and improving social care, again with cameras present and social media footage, but no detail.
Likewise, on apprenticeships and technical education. Here, Burnham donned a hard hat to boast that his reforms will ensure the UK will soon “value the hard hat as much as the graduation cap”.
The more this continues, the more you’re left realising Labour MPs elected him – and it was them, not the public – to lead the nation was because they liked his personality. Forget policy. Versus Keir Starmer, ‘Andy’ came across as dynamic and engaged, someone who was translatable, to use their term, to the masses. His openness and tendency to emote, which can often be mistaken for honesty, were major draws. Here was a modern, photogenic, black T-shirt wearing (think Volodymyr Zelenskyy) leader, who was instantly relatable. He is everybody’s son, everybody’s son-in-law.
That’s fine and, after Starmer, it is a breath of fresh air but being a leader is about so much more. It’s about delivering the beef, as the Americans say, or as folks in the north of England, where Burnham is from, like to quip and – as he must have heard countless times – it’s avoiding being “all mouth and no trousers”.
We’re only weeks in and the ousting of Starmer and his replacement was rapid. Now, though, we’re heading into an autumn in which Burnham will have to make pronouncements and sell and defend them. Parliament will soon resume, then it’s the annual party conference and his set-piece speech, followed by his first budget. Meanwhile, as well, world events are unfolding – here also, Burnham has had little meaningful to impart – and there is a coming around of international summits to attend.
It will be non-stop. It’s to be hoped the plans and ambition of him and his aides extend beyond the next TikTok.
