It’s back to school week across England right now, and that brings with it well-rehearsed family rituals. New school uniforms, trainers, pen and pencil cases and school shoes are in great demand. Any town centre will see shoe shops filled with frustrated parents trying to ensure their fashion-conscious teenagers choose “sensible” shoes rather than fashionable ones that fall apart by Christmas.
There is also the (supposedly) grown-up equivalent of back-to-school week at Westminster. The ancient Parliament has resumed business. New UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham will hope to set the agenda not just this week or this year but for the rest of his time in Downing Street, at least up to the next general election.
Since his return to the House of Commons after his by-election success six weeks ago, Mr Burnham has had a relatively easy ride. Parliament has been in recess, MPs on holiday and the new Prime Minister has been able to set his own agenda while one of his key rivals, Reform UK’s Nigel Farage, has received some of his most hostile media coverage in years.
Mr Burnham has travelled within the UK and also managed his first foreign trip to Kyiv to express strong British solidarity with Ukraine in the war with Russia. The UK Ministry of Defence has also made British support for Ukraine clear in practical terms. Royal Navy warships with air support have tracked Russian navy vessels and sanctioned cargo ships in the North Sea and English Channel.
The Prime Minister has also announced initiatives on everything from the cost of living to ending rough sleeping, but as the summer heat fades this week the political heat turns up.
Mr Burnham’s first appearance on a government front bench for 16 years brings his first ever Prime Minister’s Questions. The political honeymoon is over and parliamentary scrutiny of his premiership begins. And that’s when the new leader inherits all the old problems beginning with the economy, promises of increased defence spending and – most immediately – the years-in-the-making overcrowding problem in British prisons.
He has to release thousands of convicted prisoners in October and beyond, but he has now responded to the public revulsion at the prospect of two killers of a police officer, Andrew Harper, being among those scheduled for release. “I heard obviously what Andrew Harper’s family were saying,” Mr Burnham said recently. “I mean who couldn’t.” Anyone convicted of unlawful killing will not qualify for early release, a line of course in tune with the public mood, but inevitably a decision that makes the squeeze on prison places even worse.
At his first Prime Minister’s Questions today, he will also be attacked on the most familiar of government problems – where does the money come from for spending commitments? More specifically, how can he boost defence spending, address the cost-of-living crisis felt by many families, make the National Health Service better and do all this without significant tax rises?
Mr Burnham’s new Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Healey, will reveal his first budget in October – and that is fraught with hugely difficult choices as Mr Healey knows well. He resigned as previous prime minister Keir Starmer’s defence secretary earlier this year because he could not get enough money for the defence budget he wanted – billions of pounds extra. The governing Labour party has committed to spending 3.5 per cent of gross domestic product on defence by the middle of the next decade, but right now it’s not even clear when the more modest target of 3 per cent will be met.
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Andy Burnham delivers his inaugural speech as the UK's new Prime Minister. Getty Images -
Mr Burnham greets supporters as he arrives at No 10 Downing Street. Reuters -
Mr Burnham thanks supporters outside No 10. Reuters -
King Charles III and Mr Burnham at Buckingham Palace, London, where he invited the leader of the Labour Party to become Prime Minister and form a new government. AFP -
Mr Burnham delivers his speech. AFP -
Mr Burnham and his wife Marie-France van Heel at Buckingham Palace. AFP -
Mr Burnham arrives for an audience with the king at Buckingham Palace. AFP
All these inherited problems are made more difficult because Labour was elected in 2024 on a promise not to raise income tax, VAT or national insurance.
What about borrowing more? Well, Mr Burnham – learning from the disastrous short premiership of the former Conservative prime minister Liz Truss – clearly understands that spooking the bond market is in modern politics political suicide. He says he is committed to sticking by his predecessor’s fiscal rules on debt and borrowing. A change in prime minister does not change political mathematics. Governments can only borrow more, tax more or spend less, cutting some areas to finance others.
Whatever Mr Burnham decides, political opponents will oppose, and the bond markets and voters will react. The short Burnham honeymoon is therefore now over, and the hard choices begin. But there is a glimmer of light.
There are Westminster rumours of a possible “windfall tax” on two sectors of the economy that are making huge profits, and which are not universally popular with voters. In the first half of this year, the UK’s four biggest banks reported total pre-tax profits of more than £29.2 billion (almost $40 billion). That’s a 21 per cent increase from the same period last year. The oil company BP reported a second-quarter profit of £4.27 billion. That’s more than double from the previous year. A rival oil company Shell has similarly successful figures.
Political predictions are always unwise, especially when both the UK prime minister and his finance minister are new to their jobs, but taxing the very healthy profits of enormous multinational corporations is unlikely to be a big vote loser.
