To the Euston Station

by Stoker

Andy Burnham, Photo: Scottish Government (because cropped by Wikipedia from one of him and John Swinney, First Minister of Scotland)

The Trump Ban is still imposed by our Only Connect Editor, even in this year and month, 250 years since the Founding Fathers threw off the British yoke and began their fight for freedom.  Would they have done it if they had had even a momentary vision of the 45^th and 47^th President, our own hard-swearing, humourless, self-adoring Donald, building his golden ballroom?  Or even of the confused interim 46^th incumbent, Sleepy Joe?  (Sorry, we must withdraw “humourless”; Pocohontas Warren will live for ever in 21^st century politics, Sleepy Joe was the meme juste, and Crooked Hillary has to invoke a giggle.)

But no more Trump in these pages, at least for now, and just in time we have a new Superhero to dissect: Andy Burnham, the only man to step down from being a King to be a mere Prime Minister (in waiting).  King of the North he was, crowned thus in true Napoleonic style as his adoring Manchester voters raised him from Mayor to Monarch with his wholehearted concurrence. And now, as per Lenin’s Great Train Ride to Petrograd’s Finlandia Station, kindly arranged in 1917 by the Kaiser of Germany to sew maximum dissension in Russia, the train from Manchester Piccadilly to London Euston has brought His Majesty Burnham from his northern fastness to take up his new responsibilities; to succeed Keir Starmer as the all- uniting, all-saving, all-successful leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

The Kaiser’s naughty plot did not quite work as intended and we must wonder if Mr Burnham’s train ride also may not quite end with the success that the southbound First Class passenger has in mind.  But it has been a quite remarkable coup, even if long heralded by Andy himself and others.  Nobody could accuse the modern-day Labour Party of being overfull of leadership talent, but there were certainly plenty who thought to promote themselves to step into Keir’s well-polished shoes - Ms Rayner, Mr Streeting, Ms Cooper, Mr Milliband.  But when the march from the Piccadilly Station began, they all faded away like rose petals in a drought, anxious to procure a cabinet post rather than risk a humiliating defeat battling for the top job (yes, we do mean you Mr Streeting).  By the time the big red (alright, blue) express pulled into Euston all opposition seemed to have melted and Andy had become all things to everybody.

The conquering hero arrived in the House of Commons to take his seat to cheering and huzzas.  And from the Tory benches a yell of “He’s not the Messiah”.  Our gracious, will-be sovereign laughed and called back “Naughty boy.” Somebody leaned close to Keir and explained the Monty Python Life of Brian reference, but Keir looked stoney-faced.

It now only remains for a smooth transition of power to take place - the week after next apparently - a new batch of ministers to be appointed, the King of the North to graciously receive the other King, Charles Whatshisname, to assure him his job is safe (for now), and off we go.  “Ahha” you ask, “But what are his policies, what drives his reforming zeal, what dreams will he realise to amaze his adoring followers?”  Well, that is a very good question, because although Mr Burnham has made two speeches setting out his vision thing, neither was terribly, or at all, enlightening, and he declined to take any questions after. 

We are in the early stages of what used to be known in the press as “the silly season.” Ascot, a test match, Wimbledon were closely followed by the political holidays when the toff’s politicians went to the grouse moors or the south of France, and the worker’s politicians went to Blackpool or Scarbrough.  As nothing happened until the beginning of September, socially or politically, the press had to scramble around for stories, anything to fill the pages; cats up trees were always popular in this interregnum, as were Dukes mistaken for gardeners by visitors to their castles, black mystery beasts in West Country woods or on Norfolk heaths, and ten-legged spiders. That sort of thing.

You may be thinking that that the Mayor of Manchester being catapulted to Prime Minister, unelected and without committing himself to any policies or manifesto, is a classic silly season story.  Indeed, if proposed to any reputable publisher as a post- Trollope political tale, any such manuscript would be immediately returned to the unfortunate novelist, as totally ludicrous.  But here we are, the dull and idea-free Keir is to be replaced by the witty and idea-free Andy, and we can only hope the humour keeps coming.

Actually we wrong him.  Andy has one big idea which he has been working on for …., well since last Tuesday, so far as we can see: Devolution.  Not of Scotland or Wales, which drifted free a decade and more ago.  The English regions are what he means.  Manchester for a start, of course.  As to what other regions will raise the proud banners of freedom, Andy has not yet enlightened us.  Birmingham and environs;  Slough and Lower Buckinghamshire?  Cornwall has a small but loud independence party, Mebyon Kernow.  Free Fyldecoast? The independent city state of King’s Lynn, perchance? But don’t get too excited, free Cornishmen, or indeed self-rulers anywhere.  What Andy has in mind seems to be is to devolve tax-raising, and more excitingly, tax-spending, to regional groups. No Manchester Senators, or Birmingham Congressess; not yet.

This is a very strange thing to which to tie the Burnham colours. For one thing, in 2004, Labour’s then deputy prime minister John Prescott, the Bruiser of Hull as his adoring fans called him following Mr Prescott’s spirited debate with a heckler using a powerful right hook, proposed referenda to permit devolved tax-raising and spending regional assemblies for the North East, the North West (including Manchester) and Yorkshire.  The first one was held in the North East and 78% of voters rebuffed the proposal. The other referenda were quietly abandoned.  Not much sign, then or now, of enthusiasm for any more layers of local government. The public knows that local politicians are very good at spending money, the citizenry’s money that is, not their own, and don’t fancy giving them powers to reach even deeper into the voter’s increasingly threadbare pockets. 

And here’s another thing.  Would any observer call the devolved governments of Scotland and Wales a major success?  We were able to interview a Ms N Sturgeon outside a wine bar in West London who said the Scottish Assembly had been good for her, but other views are of higher tax rates, incompetent government, new layers of bureaucracy and interference, and other suggestions which we will not mention at the prodding of OC’s advisory lawyers.  In a country which increasingly seems to want less but better government, competent and hard-working experienced ministers, and rapid delivery of popular policies, creating yet more chaos and confusion seems an odd way to proceed. 

We suspect though that Andy will have picked up at least one key skill from his departing predecessor.  The art of the U turn.  And given the long list of problems and difficulties our new Prime Minister will shortly be facing, English devolution may well be one for the sudden swerve and retreat.