Image source, PA MediaByHenry ZeffmanChief political correspondent

  • Published6 minutes ago

At the start of summer, in the pillared room in 10 Downing Street, Andy Burnham looked out at his new special advisers, the few dozen political officials tasked with driving hundreds of thousands of civil servants to deliver his government’s agenda.

Some had been with him in Manchester or Makerfield. Others had spent the past few months trying everything to prevent his hostile takeover of Sir Keir Starmer’s government – and the new prime minister showed he was aware of it, going out of his way to praise those who had stayed on, for their efforts in the preceding years.

At that meeting, Burnham’s team mapped out four key moments in the coming months.

First, the return to Parliament in September, when Burnham and other leading ministers would make their first statements to MPs.

Second, Labour’s annual conference at the end of September – Burnham’s first as leader.

Third, the Budget, taking place on 28 October.

And fourth, the 10-year plan for Britain which Burnham intends to unveil in November.

As MPs prepare to leave Parliament on Tuesday for almost a month and party conference season gets underway, the first phase of that route map is almost complete – enough for figures at all levels of the Labour Party to begin answering some questions about the shape of this new government.

Most importantly, perhaps, how new actually is it? Does Burnham represent continuity or change?

That question is especially relevant because those Labour MPs who pushed for Sir Keir to be replaced always fell into two broad camps: those who wanted a change of style and emphasis but continuity in policy, and those who wanted a major shift in policy. Both groups saw what they wanted in Burnham.

Image source, Reuters

Going by the words of the new prime minister himself, he represents a profound break with the past, and not only the immediate past.

In his first speech as Labour leader in July, Burnham described his ascendancy as “the most significant change moment in our politics for 40 years”.

That is the timeframe he has returned to again and again, signalling not just a desire to reverse issues he believes stem from the Thatcher era but also to break with aspects of the Labour governments since then, including his immediate predecessor’s.

Some in government are already quietly questioning, though, whether the ambition of that rhetoric can be squared with the early signals emerging from the Treasury under the new Chancellor John Healey.

In interviews over recent weeks, and especially in his first major speech on Monday, Healey has said he will stick to Rachel Reeves’s commitments not to increase the main rates of income tax, national insurance and VAT, as well as her rules on government borrowing.

In the speech, he promised to “control public spending”, and hailed Reeves for beginning to “recover Britain’s fiscal discipline”.

It led to opposition parties labelling Healey a continuity chancellor. A similar critique is being voiced among some of his government colleagues.

Most are more generous for now, arguing that Healey’s first imperative – especially at a time of turmoil in the global bond markets – is reassurance, and that the Budget is the moment for him to show how he plans to substantiate Burnham’s rhetoric.

Even one official sympathetic on that point, though, asks: “Why did he do a big speech before he has something to say?”

Those close to Healey argue that his emphasis this week on securing the economic growth which has eluded successive governments by spreading wealth around the country is a clear difference from Reeves.

And finding ways to boost regional growth has been one of Healey’s major causes since he was a junior minister at the Treasury more than 20 years ago – long before it was at the heart of Burnham’s political personality.

There is no question, though, that this week the minister who most starkly signalled change from the previous government was a man who coveted Healey’s job – Ed Miliband, who was instead appointed foreign secretary.

In announcing new sanctions on Israel over illegal settlements in the West Bank, Miliband explicitly cast the policy as a break from Sir Keir’s approach, telling MPs: “We should have acted earlier, and it has taken the new prime minister to come in and recognise the gravity of the situation.”

On the other hand, acting alongside Canada and France in announcing the sanctions represented – in form if not substance – continuity with the previous government, the three countries having moved together to recognise the state of Palestine a year ago.

The sanctions announcement was received with near-universal warmth from Labour MPs, itself a marker of change from the Starmer government.

It was also seen as a sign of the ability of Miliband in particular, but this government in general, to drive its agenda through the civil service machine.

“There is a much clearer sense now from No 10 of what they want,” one official who worked under Sir Keir as well as Burnham says. “Before there was a bit too much of ‘let us know your ideas for what we should do’, now it’s ‘this is what the PM wants, give us options to deliver it’.”

That is a culture shift which Burnham sought to drill into his cabinet at their weekly meeting on Tuesday, still only their third such meeting.

According to one present, the prime minister said: “We need to be on the front foot. We need to be bolder. Let’s get on and do things. It’s about deeds not words.”

Perhaps the most significant way in which Burnham is trying to make boldness easier for his ministers is by encouraging them to press ahead with policies when there is a risk they will face a serious legal challenge.

The new attorney general, Ellie Reeves, has pared back rules introduced under Sir Keir which some ministers believed forced them to be over-cautious about legal risk, thereby slowing down or blocking new policies altogether.

Louise Haigh, Burnham’s deputy, has vowed to “strip out needless bureaucracy” from government more generally, citing an example of there being three public consultations between 2019 and 2023 on whether to microchip cats.

“If we can’t microchip cats without getting tied up in red tape, it should come as no surprise the public is losing faith that governments can get things done,” she said.

As Burnham moves into the next phase of his autumn, there is a recognition from some around him that he will need to produce some more significant policies to underpin his rhetoric.

Those in government familiar with early work on fleshing out his commitment to “public control” of essential services insist the direction of travel is truly radical.

Haigh is responsible for this, chairing a taskforce on how to reverse “over-privatisation” specifically of housing, water, energy and transport.

Burnham may offer more details on these policies at Labour’s conference, while he is likely to wait until after then to show his hand on whether he wants continuity or change when it comes to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s reforms to the legal immigration system – a much more divisive issue among Labour MPs.

And whatever their differences on policy, Labour MPs are united on one thing. The fundamental reason they installed a new prime minister was because many of them believed that continuing on the same path meant losing the next general election.

For them, a long-term improvement in Labour’s poll ratings would be the most important change of them all.

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