Andy Burnham became Prime Minister just a couple of weeks ago on a promise to bring back hope. And Labour’s big win in the Manchester mayoral election on Thursday has certainly given him a reason to be cheerful. It also fits rather neatly into his pledge to give areas like that lots more clout, not least in terms of the money they can spend. As our Political Correspondent Peter Spencer reports, he has a window of opportunity, and he’s using it to let in as much sunshine as he can. While it lasts.
It’s a rule of thumb that incoming PMs are at their most powerful in their first few weeks in office. And though lately it feels like we’re seeing a new face every other day this one does have a bit of an audience.
He could have done without fulminations in the footie world and wildfires everywhere snatching attention away from the message he’s trying to get across. But some of it is obviously getting through.
In a sense what’s just happened in the Manchester mayoral election proves the point. It’s one up on any opinion poll, millions of people actually getting to choose who’s going to run their local mega-authority.
And, as more than twice as many of them plumped for the Labour candidate than the Reform runner up, Burnham’s jitters that voters would punish him for giving up the job to further his own ambitions are well and truly buried.
Nigel Farage’s fears, by contrast, are increasingly and amply justified.
Punters were giving his Reform Party the overwhelming thumbs up last autumn. But since then they’ve slipped back around ten points, with surveys now indicating a clear Burnham bounce, and putting the two parties neck and neck.
One thing the two men have in common, in spades, is the ability to talk the talk. Like Tony Blair and Boris Johnson, before they got sent off to the naughty step.
The real worry for chummy chappie Nige is that he might be headed the same way. It’s all about image. And he’s doomed if instead of standing you a pint he looks like he’s flogging you snake oil.
Worse, he could even be seen as a bit of a snake in the grass, what with all the money he seems to have got his hands on of late.
Probably a bit glib of Labour to say his gang’s up to its neck in sleaze. But the benefits in kind so generously passed his way by a convicted fraudster aren’t exactly a good look. Same as his grins suddenly losing out to the grumps.
On the political coin’s flipside, Andy Burnham has yet to put a foot seriously wrong. Swopping formal for casual gear to suit the moment, and engaging his audiences by talking to them face to face instead of reading scripts at then from behind lecterns.
Poor Keir Starmer, on that front he wasn’t here even when he was here.
Then there are the choices Burnham’s been making on what wares to put on display. After week one’s tasty titbits designed to save us all a few bob, like on lekky bills and bus fares, he’s switched to much harder things that need sorting but haven’t been.
First off, there was the glaring problem of youth unemployment. Currently, nearly a million young people aren’t working or learning anything. Costing the nation nearly twice as much as it spends on defence. And, boy, does it need more on that.
Plus, dispiritingly, one in seven of those youngsters with nothing on the horizon has a university degree. A far cry from the jollity and optimism that go with the coming-out ceremony.
Well, Burnham’s decided that this knotty problem needs unpicking pronto. First off, by ditching Blair’s grand plan to get half of under thirties off to uni. And getting them instead to: ‘Value the hard hat as much as the graduation cap.’
In practice, this’ll mean wholesale reforms to the GCSE system, with greater emphasis on technical subjects, enabling the kids to study them instead of A-levels, thus helping them get work experience and contacts with local businesses.
If it all sounds long overdue that’s because it is. Same as the real biggie of the week, Burnham’s bold foray into the imbroglio marked social care.
It’s all about what you do to help people who for reasons of age or long-term ill-health don’t really need to be in hospital but who can’t take care of themselves.
The problem’s got steadily harder to solve as life expectancy’s got steadily longer. Indeed, over the last three decades there’ve been no fewer than twenty-two official reviews, none of which has got anywhere.
Little wonder it’s been described by a leading thinktank as the: ‘Westminster graveyard of good intentions.’
But Burnham’s having none of it. If we let things just drift on as they are, he insists, it’ll be the National Health Service that’s in the graveyard.
And, unlike other politicians who blithely tell us they ‘get it’, he really does. As his own dad is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease that’s so advanced that he doesn’t even know his son’s become Prime Minister.
In an ideal world, Burham would like to see a new, fully universal system, modelled on the NHS. In fact, he nearly got there, but not quite, back when he was Health Secretary sixteen years ago.
The problem then, as now, was who foots the bill? And how? Given that the estimated price tag is getting on for twenty billion a year, it’s no great surprise that the parties haven’t been able to agree on what to do about it.
Ironically, though it was David Cameron’s Conservative government that torpedoed Burham’s plan, he’s finally admitting his lot did fail to cut what he now concedes is the ‘catastrophic’ cost of social care.
A handy admission for Burham, as he’s trying to get other parties in on talks about the way forward. His hope being, he says, to: ‘Build a different way of doing politics – more problem-solving, less point scoring.’
Good luck with that, many would say. But the vibe from the social care world does seem optimistic. As one veteran campaigner put it: ‘He had every opportunity to downplay expectations but he didn’t.’
That said, he could do without a little help of the kind offered by his orange oppo across The Pond. Seeing as money’s of the essence whatever which way, it’s a shame about the latest gloomy forecast from Britain’s oldest economics think tank.
These guys reckon that expected rises in inflation will dig a twenty-four billion-pound-shaped hole in our government’s spending plans. All thanks to the Donald’s wonderful wheeze of going to war with Iran.
Shame the likes of him can’t follow the example of the children from a group of schools across Somerset and Bristol, who’ve set about beating the unofficial Guiness World Record of acts of kindness.
Nine-year-old Paul Reuben’s contribution was bringing cupcakes to teachers at Yeo Moor Primary School in the small town of Clevedon, with messages on them like: ‘You’ve got this. Nothing’s ever too hard.’
Fellow nine-year-old Emily added: ‘When I’m kind to people it makes me feel happy and glad. I think it might make other people feel happy and grateful.’
There, how hard is that?
Watch Peter’s report at peterspencer.org
Peter Spencer has 40 years experience as a Political Correspondent in Westminster, working with London Broadcasting and Sky News. For more of his fascinating musings on the turbulent political landscape, follow him on Facebook & Twitter.