BS Summary: This article contains 39 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Authority, Halo Effect, and Framing Effect, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 14.3% saturation with 347 hits. Analysis detected 3,939 faulty-reasoning hits from 2,431 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 66.3% and a BS Rank of 73% (5,059 of 18,604 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 72.80% of the article peer group.
Who is Andy Burnham?
It’s the £2.91-trillion question that the bond markets will be considering today.
Labour has committed itself to a Doctor Who strategy, hoping that a regeneration of its leadership with a telegenic fresh face will get viewers to switch back to the program.
Now that the lead actor has been cast, the question is: who will write the script?
And like Doctor Who , Labour cannot afford another bad series.
It’s glory or cancellation.
Keir Starmer’s time as leader started with promise, but viewers quickly figured out that the story wasn’t going anywhere.
Starmer wanted to run the government like a barristers’ chambers, tackling everything on a case-by-case basis.
Labour now understands that competence and a shopping list of achievements are not enough.
The country feels like it is heading in the wrong direction.
It wants a prime minister with a compelling narrative of what has failed and what needs to be done about it.
What seems to be emerging are two competing camps of political organizers, advisors and intellectuals with different views on what had sent the ratings tumbling and what is needed to revive the Labour franchise: the Philosophers and the Economists.
This may simply read like backroom maneuvering, but it matters, because the Prime Minister does not run the country directly.
He depends on his advisors to identify problems, frame the solutions and monitor implementation.
The day-to-day is increasingly outsourced.
As Starmer found out with his appointment of Morgan McSweeney, more than anything else, the people that you appoint to work for you will define the direction of your premiership.
This is why Andy Burnham’s appointment of James Purnell as chief of staff has attracted as many column inches as some Cabinet ministers will get in their lifetimes.
What, then, are the next choices available to Burnham?
The Philosophers think that the Government’s original sin was to treat the current political moment as business-as-usual.
Too focused on technocratic challenges and delivery, Labour missed that it was actually in the midst of an existential fight with the forces of Right-wing reaction, forces that have been emboldened by passivity from the center and progressive politicians.
The problem with Starmer, in this view, was that he did not fully commit to this fight despite diagnosing it.
The Philosopher camp thinks that a new progressive alliance is necessary to rally Greens, Liberal Democrats and various brands of socialists.
The only way to build this alliance is to demonstrate a full-throated commitment to a new politics through constitutional and social reform.
This means breaking up the Westminster system, particularly through maximal devolution, electoral and constitutional reform.
Westminster is the target because, in the Philosophers’ view, its centralized adversarial system has entrenched division by pitching region against region to compete for resources and preventing long-term consensual policy development in critical areas such as social care and infrastructure.
It also means not compromising with those who say that voters on the Right need to be met halfway.
For example, being bolder on overturning austerity and making the welfare system more generous, through potentially a “ social guarantee ” that substantially reduces poverty.
In this view, Labour should also double down on its defense of the value of migration and Net Zero to give plenty of red meat, or quinoa, to the base.
The Philosophers include Mainstream Labour’s Neal Lawson, who was an early backer of Burnham and a persistent outrider for a new progressive alliance.
This alliance has been a very long-term Labour project.
It can trace its recent lineage to Tony Blair’s flirtation with the Liberal Democrats in the Nineties to heal what he saw as the historic mistake of the split between Liberals and Labour that allowed the Conservatives to win so many elections in the 20th century.
As the “Liberal” voter bloc has diminished, however, the progressive alliance is now focused on that group of disillusioned younger voters, split into various smaller parties following the failure of Corbynism.
Compass, the Left-wing pressure group co-founded by Lawson, has been the home of this project for many years.
Lawson himself was nearly expelled from Labour after retweeting a message about backing Green candidates in local elections to beat the Conservatives.
Burnham has repeatedly spoken at Compass events and has made no secret of his desire to work across party lines.
Suggested reading What Burnham gets wrong about the elites
This side has been strengthened by the appointment of Matthew McGregor, now the Prime Minister’s Director of Strategy, who worked on Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign as well as Hope Not Hate and 38 Degrees, organizations which in their own ways have created new alliances, particularly with young voters, within the progressive ecosystem.
Another fellow traveler is former Miliband speech writer, Marc Stears, who has spent years working on how to craft a progressive narrative that can appease both the progressive base and win over disaffected voters in deprived areas.
A rising star within this group is Miatta Fahnbulleh, the former Minister for Devolution and a London MP.
She strongly defended Starmer’s conference speech last year, which framed the political moment as a “battle for the soul” of the country.
She has also previously said that it is “sad” that immigration has become “toxic”.
“If you look at the facts,” she said “the benefits of immigration to any country, any society, always outweigh the losses.”
Fahnbulleh is one of the central coordinators of Burnham’s emerging policy agenda and is at the heart of the process of deciding which policies will be prioritized in the first 100 days.
The Economists take a different view.
They see the primary failure of the government as a naive belief that it could squeeze a bit more life out of the current economic model and share the proceeds of growth through higher public spending.
In their analysis, this was a fatal misreading of the state of the economy, which is in terminal decline due to a lack of investment and corporate short-termism.
The only way back is to break this economic model through a package of increased public investment, greater public control of utilities and reindustrialization as well as tax reform to spread growth across the nations and regions.
The Economists include the respected think-tanker Mathew Lawrence, who more than anyone else has sought to give coherence to Burnham’s economic ideas through his influential essay on Manchesterism .
It also includes the Tribune Group of MPs, which is reported to have over 100 MPs as members; its leading lights are Louise Haigh and Yuan Yang.
The Tribune Group has a long history of being the home of soft-Left, a collection of views that now means not being Blairite or part of the patriotic “Old Right” of Labour traditionalists.
Haigh and Yang have called for “using the powers entrusted to us by the British people to build an economy fit for the 21st century” and a more flexible approach to the fiscal rules .
Josh Simons, Burnham’s predecessor as Makerfield MP, was pushing for reindustrialization of the British economy to bring jobs back to his former constituency and has been heavily involved in preparation for government work.
Floating around these camps are the “freelancers ”, such as ex-Goldman Sachs chairman Lord Jim O’Neill, former OBR chief Richard Hughes and one-time Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane.
They are currently advising Burnham as well as providing assurance to the markets.
All have previously worked with the Conservatives in government, most notably on the Northern Powerhouse and Levelling Up.
At the core of the O’Neill-Haldane project lies a belief in sticking to clear fiscal rules to keep the bond markets happy, more devolution of powers on infrastructure and skills to mayors, not raising taxes on business , and long-term public investment in infrastructure, particularly rail and energy.
In many ways, this is a continuation of the economic orthodoxy of the past 15 years.
On the surface, these freelancers may seem the natural allies of The Economists, but they fear their radicalism.
In many respects, they are emotionally closer to The Philosophers despite their professional backgrounds.
They are establishment figures who desperately want to return to the days before the culture wars.
Taking the fight to Farage on values while running a more traditional economic program would be their preference.
Burnham’s genius since he became mayor of Greater Manchester has been his ability to straddle both camps.
He has been a strong defender of progressive causes from trans rights to a more inclusive approach to migration , while also championing business reform, using public procurement to encourage businesses to sign up to more labor and social rights for workers, and a commitment to a green industrial strategy .
The latter, the green transition, is a bridge between the two camps.
Fahnbulleh and Lawrence, for example, are both prominent champions of Net Zero as a means of spreading growth across the country, saving the planet and appealing to young progressive voters.
Devolution is another area where both Philosophers and Economists think Labour can demonstrate a new form of politics and deliver economic reform.
However, there will inevitably be tensions.
A radical economic program of public control of utilities and reindustrialization will be very hard to pursue if Westminster is occupied by big constitutional debates.
Getting permission from skeptical voters for the state to raise taxes for public investment will be challenging if migration remains a hot-button issue with voters concerned about who may ultimately benefit from increased public spending.
“The Philosophers have the initial advantage because many of their ideas are cheaper and easier to implement.”
Anyone who says they know for certain the direction Burnham will go in is lying.
If there is one thing that has so far defined Burnham, it is his pragmatism.
As he has said repeatedly, he is a “ team player ” and the unity of the Labour Party is his central goal.
This dislike of factionalism has been central to his critique of New Labour .
His Labour leadership acceptance speech was a call for “one Labour team”.
In many ways, he is similar to Harold Wilson, who made it his goal to keep the party together during the tumultuous Sixties and Seventies.
Like Wilson, Burnham has been and will be accused of equivocation and dissembling.
However, like Wilson, he recognizes that as the Labour Party is in the fight for its life, it can only hope to beat Reform and the Greens if the party is relatively united.
It is both emotionally at the core of his politics and a matter of rational self-interest.
The real question, however, is whether Burnham’s advisors, supporters and MPs see it that way.
A new leader offers them a chance to realize their aspirations and priorities; will they be willing to sacrifice that chance to set the political agenda for the good of the party?
Some Labour MPs, like Louise Haigh, left, want to reindustrialize; others, like Miatta Fahnbulleh, wish for a progressive alliance.
(Getty)
The Philosophers have the initial advantage because many of their ideas are cheaper and easier to implement.
For example, championing a new voting system won’t cost the Treasury a penny.
Turning the Council for the Nations and Regions into a “third chamber” of Parliament, something that may have started with rumors that Burnham plans to give regional mayors peerages , is something that can be guaranteed.
Punchier speeches robustly defending the value of migration and attacking Reform and Restore for dividing communities can be done overnight.
These sorts of policies are attractive because they will enable Burnham to show that he is changing the country and politics without having to wait years for big infrastructure projects to come off or depend on unpredictable global economic forces.
However, these ideas are unlikely to address the structural forces that are driving people away from Labour.
Does anyone think that Reform would be anywhere near government if the economy could generate decent jobs across the country?
Would Restore be a threat if living standards were rising at the levels they had been for most of the post-war period?
Here, The Economists have the advantage.
Unfortunately, their work will take time, is higher risk, and requires a total commitment from the government.
For example, taking public ownership of utilities will likely require legal fights with investors, a commitment of public resources to make up for the repair and infrastructure backlog, and take up a lot of time in Parliament.
It would be popular, but it would require an effective government machine to deliver it.
Given the premium on quick guaranteed results, a betting man would say that The Philosophers have the advantage.
The most likely outcome is a fusion, to maintain the party unity which is the core of Burnham’s politics.
The Prime Minister will want both camps to make some contributions to his statecraft to keep everyone in the tent.
However, every good television series needs an overriding narrative arc or story.
Party unity may be a noble goal, but as Wilson found out, it is not enough to satisfy the public.
He will need to go further.
Will Burnham define his premiership as being a battle to defeat “Right-wing extremism” with a new consensual, progressive politics?
Or will he define himself as a great economic reformer, as Wilson once sought to do?
Alternatively, he could create a pragmatic “ normie populism ” outlined by UnHerd ’s Jonny Ball.
This would involve keeping Shabana Mahmood’s popular migration reforms to appeal to Reform-leaning voters combined with a dose of public ownership of water companies and a bit of devolution to show care for places that have been left behind.
This would play to Burnham’s strength as a unifying figure, but rather than being inwardly focused on the party, it would outwardly focus on the country.
The great danger is that Burnham’s unifying project takes Labour right back to Starmer.
The only difference being that Burnham is pragmatic enough to maintain party unity, whereas Starmer’s pragmatism was forced on him by events.
Just like his predecessor, Burnham could be beset by constant resets and lurches in direction.
He must persuade his party that his pragmatism is in their political interest and for the good of the country, rather than being a sign of incompetence or weakness.
Burnham has one advantage that Starmer never had.
He knows if he fails to develop a clear narrative that there are plenty of politicians within his own Cabinet who will have no hesitation in deposing him.
Once regicide is made permissible, it has a habit of repeating itself.
Analysis
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