Andy Burnham’s 100 days. Stealth reforms & Palestine
Andy Burnham completes 100 days as PM this week and media articles are appearing reviewing what he has done and not done.
Revolution is a difficult task, while noting that revolutionary change does take place around the globe, reform, that is skinning a tiger claw by claw is also difficult.
Burnham who had a sustained period as Mayor of Manchester will understand that better than most Labour Cabinet members.
Hence his focus on short term things that can actually be done. Bus fares, headphones on trains and so on.
He also understands which Starmer did not that politics is also about theatre and public performance. So we know he likes a pint and twiglets with it.
The longer term plans on care, PR voting and Europe are just that but surely designed to move to working closer with the LibDems and a very broad progressive bloc.
The verdict here might be, OK, and notably better than Starmer who thankfully seems to have disappeared from public view.
Much less good has been the foreign policy. In Ed Miliband he has one of the better Foreign Secretary’s Labour have managed over a hundred years but that is not saying a great deal.
There is a general mood at the top of warmongering which Burnham certainly is not calming even if the point he made that there is no point in defending a country that has no decent welfare or services- very Wilsonian- is a small step in the right direction.
He made a statement that Starmer had got it wrong on Gaza but then nothing has really changed. He also committed to a Labour statement that the Party should break with Greens in local authorities if they won’t disown their recent conference policy on Israel.
As a conference motion (not usually things that lead to anything happening in any party) it might have been better worded but reflected a real mood of anger over Palestine. Greens responses have rightly pointed out that Labour’s position on Israel’s genocide has been and remains dreadful.
Historically however even the better Labour Governments have been generally bad at foreign policy so not much new is being said here, except to explain why Corbyn caused such an issue. He offered the possibility of Labour foreign policy being at least a bit less bad.
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