Britain’s new Premier brings qualities to the job

Britain’s new Prime Minister brings qualities to the job that could turn the country around – charisma, good public speaking, quick wit and success in managing Manchester, the country’s third city.

On July 20, Labour politician Andy Burnham will replace Sir Keir Starmer as the nation’s seventh premier since the historic Brexit referendum in June 2016.

The British badly needs a leader to inspire them out of their malaise – since 2008, mean wages have risen by 4.5 per cent, a third of the rate in the U.S., and living standards for tens of thousands of people have fallen.

“We need hope,” Burnham said in his first speech as premier in waiting on June 29. “We can’t go through another decade like the one we just had. We need a new determination to raise living standards … We need to change politics and we need to do it now.”

In an interview on July 2, he said he would look at reducing business rates for high street businesses, and bringing down water and energy costs by nationalising companies.

“There is some room within [the 2024] manifesto for movement on tax. I believe there is a case for higher business rates on warehouses and the major developments we see on the outskirts of our cities, so that we can cut business rates for pubs.

“Britain is paying too much for the basics. People are paying too much, but businesses are also paying too much, and that is certainly true of energy. I would lay out a plan for more public control over water, energy, transport, so that over the period we can get those bills down and fares down. Britain needs more breathing space … We do need to be serious about putting more money back into people’s pockets.”

He plans to set up a second Prime Minister’s office in the northern city of Manchester, where he was mayor from 2017 until this year, and work out of there some of the time.

He promised to abide by the fiscal rules of the current government to keep borrowing under control and to uphold Labour’s 2024 tax promises. The manifesto included a promise not to increase the rates of income tax, employee national insurance and value added tax, as well as the main rate of corporation tax.

Burnham appeals to the working class, especially in the North and Midlands of England, who have increasingly switched to the far-right Reform UK. In local elections in May, Reform won a record 677 seats, 41 per cent of the total, against 98 for Labour, six per cent of the total.

Himself from the northwest of England, Burnham has the language and style to reach working class voters. Starmer is an intellectual from London, a lawyer, who does not have Burnham’s charm or rhetoric.

Many Labour supporters are enthusiastic about him. “He is our best, perhaps our only, chance to prevent Reform winning the next general election in 2029 and preventing its leader Nigel Farage becoming Prime Minister,” said Steve Clark, a schoolteacher.

But the business community and right-wing people are sceptical.

Sir Niall Ferguson, a British historian, said that Britain needed radical reform, with cuts in both taxes and welfare spending, to kick-start the economy.

“But neither of the big parties in Britain will do this. So I give Burnham two years. He will go the way of Starmer. Neither will the governments of France and Germany implement such reforms,” he said.

Right wing newspapers in Britain have stressed Burnham’s limited budgetary freedom if he wants to maintain fiscal responsibility and satisfy international capital markets whose loans are essential. Bond investors charge Britain higher interest rates than any other big rich country.

One of them, the Times, said in an editorial last week: “Public spending is on course to reach almost 45 per cent of GDP in the current financial year. Public sector net debt stands at about 94 per cent of GDP. Borrowing must be put on a sustained track. Especially if Labour is to raise defence spending to three per cent of GDP in the next parliament, as it says it will, and should … He should appoint a chancellor willing to curb the burgeoning welfare budget, starting with the triple lock and disability benefits. On this, the fate of a Burnham government would depend.”

Adrian Smith is a British lawyer who has been living in Athens for over 10 years. “Each time I return to Britain, I am happy that I am living in Greece. The country has been going downhill slowly since Brexit. It will take time to fix the problems. But does Burnham have time? People want instant improvements. If they do not get them, will they turn against him?”