Can Andy Burnham turn the government around?

Monday 20 July 2026.  Keir Starmer’s final speech as Prime Minister.

Just two years after Labour’s landslide general election victory, when the applause that wrapped him tight, lifted him high and carried him over the threshold of No.10 was so deafening, he should really have been wearing ear defenders, Starmer’s time as Prime Minister, is over. 

Now, that applause, though congenial, respectful and polite, was noticeably a decibel or two quieter, serving only to let him go, drop him to the ground and to remind him to make his own way out.

Surely, not even in his worst of all nightmares could he had imagined his July 2024 bubble, so full of the public’s air of hope would deflate so quickly or that the ear-splitting applause that once threatened to deafen him, would have become a slow, if gentle, hand clap imploring him to go.

To have been the leader of a party that won 411 out of 650 parliamentary seats, (that’s 63.23% of them by the way), in a general election, and then just two years later to be the same leader who felt they had no other option but to resign, is really quite astonishing when you think about it.

But I guess, when many of those seats had been, metaphorically speaking, ‘ripped from the green benches’ and were being ‘hurled in the leader’s direction’, then better to resign and take refuge than to stand out in the open and be hit by one from row Z; does anybody remember Luton vs. Millwall from 1985?

Starmer made many a mistake, of that there is no doubt. 

But he also made many an achievement, particularly on the international stage, a stage it always seemed to me he was more comfortable performing on.

The history books will be kinder to him than his political opponents, some in the media and even some in the Labour Party itself, have been.  

The worst prime minister ever?  

No, not on your nelly.  Just look back at recent political history and take your pick.  

The most unpopular prime minister ever?  

Well, if the measure of unpopularity were based solely on the football team you support, in Starmer’s case Arsenal, then maybe so.  But it isn’t.

Being popular and unpopular cycle through time, you will always end up being both.  And if you’ll allow me to stick with a footballing analogy to make my point, just think of David Beckham against Argentina in World Cup ‘98 and the same David Beckham against Greece when qualifying for the World Cup of 2002.  

Chalk, cheese and a magnificent 93^rd minute equalizer.  The same player at a different time.

Would there have been a different time when Starmer was more popular?  Possibly. Probably. Almost certainly.  

The truth is we’ll never know and so, it will be left to a chat with your mates down the pub to decide.

Now wearing the ear defenders to protect against the thunderous applause, being held tight and lifted high across not one, but two thresholds: No.10 and No.10 North, is Andy Burnham.  

The King of the North has become the King of the Kingdom, a prime minister who wants to bring hope to every heart and good growth to every postcode.

In making those pronouncements he has set the high jump bar, high.  

Just a matter of months ago Burnham was Mayor of Greater Manchester and was blocked by the same Labour Party he now leads, from even being considered as a candidate, let alone standing to be an MP.  

Politics shifts fast and self-evidently; blockages can be shifted faster.  

Burnham has a vision and a direction for the country; a vision he will unfurl in the hope the country will like what they see and a direction he hopes the public will follow as he points the way ahead. 

His first instruction to end rough sleeping was authentically Labour and also authentically him. 

Removing VAT from energy bills and capping bus fares to help families, just a little bit, with the cost of living are indications as to which way he will move and signs as to whose side he is on, even if there were some snipes from the sidelines over whether or not it’s all been fully funded.

Change comes from making changes.

And when it comes to his cabinet, whilst many of the Starmer cabinet faces still remain, many more have had their cabinet seats removed.  Make no mistake, this is a Burnham cabinet, but there are still questions left searching for answers.  

Can this cabinet really change things for the better and quickly?

If familiar faces just appear in different places and with new job titles, will the public perceive them as being any different from what went before?

After all, even after the Titanic had hit the iceberg the band still played on.  And even if the musicians had decided to tune their instruments to improve the quality of their sound, the ship would still have sunk. 

And so, Burnham has to manage public perception through constant public delivery whilst at the same time looking out for icebergs dead ahead, no easy task and especially if you’ve forgotten your binoculars.   

When it comes to clearing that high jump bar, he’s got off to a promising start.

The crowd are encouragingly clapping as he runs in, his speed quickening and his stride lengthening as he prepares to launch himself over the bar.  

Let’s just hope he doesn’t fluff his Fosbury Flop.