Andy Burnham will formally succeed Keir Starmer as prime minister tomorrow, one day after becoming Labour leader on Friday. The change gives Westminster a new occupant at the top of government and puts Burnham on course to become the UK’s 59th prime minister on Monday.
Lucy Powell said Burnham has a big, bold agenda
to radically rewrite
the UK’s current political and economic model. She also said the digital ID cards scheme may not have cost a lot of money, but it takes attention away
from being laser focused on the cost of living
.
Lucy Powell on Burnham’s agenda
Powell made her remarks on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, setting out the case for a sharp break in direction before Burnham takes office. Her language points to an incoming government that wants to move quickly from leadership change to policy change, with digital ID already pulled into the argument about where government attention should go.
That matters because Burnham is not arriving to a blank slate. Labour has already tied his leadership to a broader rewrite of the country’s political and economic model, so the first days in office will be read not just as a personnel change but as a test of whether that promise becomes a governing programme.
Kemi Badenoch attacks Burnham
Kemi Badenoch said Burnham is in for a rude awakening
if he comes to office unaware of what the country’s priorities are. She described him as a people pleaser
with airy fairy
plans for government and said the job of prime minister is not a popularity contest.
Badenoch also said Burnham has not said what he’s going to do.
In the same exchange, she said Burnham was a man who was talking to the Labour Party, not the country
in his first speech as Labour leader, sharpening the divide between Labour’s reset message and the Conservative Party’s critique of it.
Westminster waits for Monday
Burnham’s move from Labour leader to prime minister unfolds in three steps across Friday, tomorrow and Monday, and each one narrows the gap between internal party victory and state power. Lucy Powell and Kemi Badenoch now define the argument around him in different ways: one says he will radically rewrite
the country’s model, while the other says his plans are airy-fairy stuff
and that he still has not said what he will do.
What Burnham announces on Monday will answer that dispute first. For readers in the UK, the immediate question is whether the new prime minister opens with a defined programme or with a broader political signal, because the opening moves will set the tone for the government that follows.
