The House | Continuity has been just as important as change in Burnham’s first week

4 min read11 min

There is a clear sense of change. Keir Starmer is gone, along with nine of his most loyal Cabinet supporters. In their place is not a tight clique of Burnham acolytes but a relatively broad swathe of non-factional appointments, epitomized by the hiring of John Healey, who has been trusted on the front bench by every Labour leader stretching back to Tony Blair.

There has also been a raft of broadly popular policy changes. His first commitment – to end rough sleeping – was a statement of his values, as well as a reminder of progress he had made in Manchester. Rough sleeping fell by two-thirds during his first five years (although it has since risen). The £2 cap on bus fares does not apply in London, but in and around the rest of England’s cities, towns and villages it really matters. The cut in energy bills is small, but symbolically, it stands in contrast to the opening moves of Starmer’s government when the Winter Fuel Payment was cut.

There is inevitably a reckoning to come in the Autumn Budget, but whereas Starmer allowed himself to be defined by inescapable economic constraints (the Tory black hole, the Ukraine war, and Iran), Burnham’s first week is defined by his agency and his choices. That feels different.

No 10 North could be gimmicky if it was a different prime minister, but Burnham is committed to pushing investment and control beyond the M25.

Alongside these actions and symbols of change, there are less showy but equally important steps of continuity.

It is notable that some of the really big tough things, like Shabana Mahmood’s progress on immigration, Pat McFadden’s preparation for welfare reform, and Torsten Bell’s major rewrite of pensions policy, will continue with the same leaders in place and broadly in the same direction. The appointment of Miatta Fahnbulleh to Ed Miliband’s old brief, together with Polly Billington (a former Miliband adviser) and climate expert Katie White, suggests there will be no rolling back on climate change. The real tests will be what happens in the North Sea, where some compromise is expected, and whether taking money from the international climate-finance budget (to fund the bus fare cap) proves to be an exception or the beginning of a wider retreat.

At adviser level, there is considerably more continuity than there was between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. When Tony left Downing Street in June 2007, his advisers gathered with him in the Pillared Room for a glass of champagne before lining the hall to applaud him as he departed. Only two of us from his team remained to applaud Gordon on his arrival and drink coffee while he soberly set out his plans.

This time, the default is that advisers stay rather than leave. The number of “holdovers”, as one adviser described them to me, is much higher. Among most of them, there is a sense that Labour still has unfinished business and has unexpectedly been granted a second and perhaps final chance to complete it.

This is not the easiest Parliamentary Labour Party to manage. There are unhappy casualties of the reshuffle. However, Burnham is an empathetic politician. He remembers people’s names and is more relaxed in the company of Labour MPs than most of his recent predecessors. He is personally well liked by many of them, but he is less familiar to those who entered Parliament after he left Westminster to become Mayor. The enormous 2024 intake, who he knows less well, will be the hard part, which partly explains his decision to appoint one of its members, Anneliese Midgley, as Chief Whip.

It is not yet a full week, but Burnham already looks at home in No 10 and, perhaps more importantly, as though he is enjoying the job. Blair’s honeymoon lasted three years, Brown’s three months, and Starmer’s never began; it is too early to tell how long Burnham’s honeymoon will last, but the public do appear willing to give him a hearing, which is in itself a huge reprieve for Labour.

The real test is how long the positive sense of agency from these first few days survives the tough decisions that are yet to come.

Theo Bertram is director of the Social Market Foundation