Six weeks in and Burnham has done what he said he would do. He’s moved fast, stayed popular and put the cost of everyday life at the centre of politics. Now parliament is back and the announcements have to become legislation. The message No 10 has settled on is “bring back hope”, and unusually for a new prime minister, the polling says it’s landing.
Today’s story is early release, and it’s his win. Alex Norris, the justice secretary, announces plans to cut the number of prisoners eligible for early release and to keep PC Andrew Harper’s killers behind bars. Burnham demanded changes to the scheme he inherited and got them, which tells you how this No 10 works. Starmer managed problems. Burnham picks the ones the public actually cares about and fixes them. The counter-attack is prison places, and capacity really is tight, but his answer is that 14 years of underinvestment did that and his choice is that dangerous offenders serve their time.
I think he wins that argument all day long.
This afternoon is the bigger moment, his first time at the despatch box in 16 years. He arrives with a full programme, VAT off energy bills, £2 bus fares, digital ID scrapped, a national care service, the biggest devolution expansion in decades, but don’t expect micro policy from the statement itself. It will be direction: public control, power in the hands of communities, the cost of living. The detail comes through the autumn. Cabinet met this morning and ministers were told to be “relentless” about giving people “room to breathe” on the cost of living. The argument underneath is the interesting bit. Privatised utilities and transport are neither reliable nor affordable, the cost of essentials is what’s squeezing family budgets, and that squeeze is what’s holding back growth. Public control as economics rather than ideology. Plenty won’t buy it, but he can point to it happening rather than being promised. Buses come under public control in the Liverpool City Region from next weekend, and No 10 North is already working with the West Midlands on routes. He governs the way he ran Manchester.
Tomorrow is his first PMQs, and the style is the substance. He’ll be deliberately non-combative, no point-scoring with Badenoch or Farage, talking over their heads to the country, and after 2,000 public question sessions as a mayor he’s had more practice at the format than anyone in the chamber. Badenoch, meanwhile, sacked Mel Stride and Priti Patel on Monday and is now on her third shadow chancellor. Only one side of that despatch box is stable.
The numbers back him. More in Common has Labour four points clear of Reform with the Tories a point further back, Opinium has his net approval up three in a fortnight, and YouGov finds voters who expected him to do badly now saying he’s exceeded expectations. He’s holding the Green and Lib Dem switchers too, the progressive coalition Starmer never built. On Wednesday he hosts Macron, over to open the Bayeux Tapestry exhibition, the first foreign leader of the premiership, with an EU reset summit pencilled in for November. Statesman stuff, in week one of term.
And I’m told No 10 is determined to kill the idea that the honeymoon is over and all that’s left is an in-tray of gloom. He’s going to run towards the difficult issues that have been ignored for too long, and that’s where the hope about the country’s future comes from. Smart, because the gloom arc is exactly where the press wants to take the autumn.
The harder questions are still coming, mind. The budget on 28 October is deliberately slimmed down to reassure markets, with the big picture held back for the ten-year plan in November. That’s serious sequencing rather than a spending spree, but fiscal headroom has shrunk from £22bn to about £15bn since the spring and tax rises in some form look inevitable. Then there’s the U-turn charge. Thames Water was supposed to go into special administration, that turned out to carry real legal risk, so he’ll legislate to do it properly instead, and the donations cap has slipped too. Pragmatism or weakness is a matter of taste. I’d say voters punish chaos harder than adjustment.
As for the jibe that he’s just Starmer with a guitar, voters seem relaxed. His North Sea approach has 56% support, sanctions on Israeli settlements run 49% in favour to 17% against, and the approval numbers keep moving his way. If this is continuity, it’s continuity people like.
“Bring back hope” is easy to mock, and by November it will need a price tag. But six weeks in, the record and the message still match. He keeps doing what he said he would do, and the public keep noticing. Hope is a slogan until you fund it. For now, it’s also a lead in the polls.
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