Andy Burnham promises us (Image: Getty)
Voters have had enough of Keir Starmer. Labour MPs have had enough too. The cabinet has had more than enough. In fact, the only person who wants more of Keir Starmer is Keir Starmer himself. If Burnham sees off Nigel Farage’s Reform in Makerfield, the stage is set. Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband will smooth his path to the top job, and get plum jobs in return. So what will he give us? It boils down to one word. Change.
Launching his campaign, Burnham used the C-word an awful lot. He told us “this is a change by-election”. A “vote to change Labour”. He didn’t directly say it was a vote to change PM, but we all know it is. After a while, it began to sound curiously familiar. Didn’t somebody else recently win an election by promising change? Then it struck me. Just guess who said this: “I have changed my party. Now I want the chance to bring that change to the country.” That was Keir Starmer before the 2024 general election.
Starmer banged on and on about change. He even put it in print after the election, publishing a lengthy list of pledges entitled: “Plan For Change”. None have come to much. Less than two years on we’re being promised change all over again. And I can tell you one thing with absolute confidence. You will hate it. Here’s why.
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The similarities between Burnham and Starmer don’t end with their love of the word change. Both are middle-aged men (Labour still can’t bring itself to appoint a woman). Both have a full head of hair. I’m serious. The last bald man to become PM was Winston Churchill in 1951. Luckily, he had other talents.
Burnham and Starmer will both say or do anything to get into power. Starmer won the Labour leadership by promising to keep the Corbynite flame alive, then snuffed it out as quickly as he could. Burnham has constantly shifted his position, depending on whether Tony Blair, Gordon Brown or Jeremy Corbyn was leading the party.
Both have long records of political flip-flops. Starmer has made screeching U-turns on winter fuel, tax, grooming gangs, immigration, benefits cuts and much else besides. Burnham has twisted on NHS reform, transport, policing, tuition fees and the bond market.
His team suggested on Monday that he would not raise income tax, VAT, or national insurance rates if he becomes PM. Now where have we heard that before?
Both have pathetically tried to appease the trans lobby. Both pretend to be back business while pushing nationalisation. Both are sneakily trying to reverse Brexit. Both pose as men of the people but are political insiders. Neither has a political conviction they won’t reverse in a heartbeat, in marked contrast to Margaret Thatcher, who Burnham derides.
It’s increasingly hard to tell them apart. Burnham has bushier eyebrows. And he’s a better talker. We’ll get the same old rubbish, with better presentation.
Once Starmer entered Downing Street, he unleashed a far harder left-wing agenda than he pretended during the election. He’s launched constant attacks on taxpayers, businesses, jobs, farmers, pensioners, savings and inheritances. We’ve had soaring spending, soaring migration, national humiliation over the Chagos Islands and our shamefully underfunded military.
Once Burnham gets into power, his mask will slip too. With Rayner, Miliband and an increasingly hard-left Labour Party pushing him, he’ll have no choice.
And that’s why I guarantee you’ll hate Burnham’s “change”? Because Britain already loathes the change Keir Starmer delivered. And Andy Burnham is preparing to give us exactly the same thing. Only more so.