Andy Burnham’s conference speech was a curious affair. He reiterated his view that the country took a wrong turn in the 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher set out to dismantle the post-WWII political settlement.
“In 1945, we had the vision to win the peace. We had the bravery to make change. We built good homes, secure jobs, health and education for everyone. We gave Britain hope again.
We made working-class aspiration feel real for families like mine. We built the common good. Or at least we did until the 1980s. Suddenly, the common wealth we had created, this party, the wealth we had created for the many was seen as an opportunity for the few.
Homes. Water. Energy. Transport. Care. Broken up and sold off.
The British Right talk about ‘taking back control’. Never let them forget, they are the ones that gave it away in the first place. Economic control diminished by selling off essentials. Political control corroded by the hollowing out of councils. Immigration control weakened by Brexit.”
Burnham’s political objective appears to be to use his administration to return to something closer to the post-WWII consensus.
It is an interesting framing, and most readers of this magazine would agree that a wrong turn was taken some 40 years ago. But it is a limited one, because it does not explain how someone like Thatcher could come to power and, within a decade, reverse a consensus that had held for over 30 years. Burnham says nothing about how this came to pass. If he does not understand how it happened, will he know how to reverse it?
The election of the Thatcher government in 1979 is usually described as a move to the right by British society, but this over-simplification obscures what Thatcher actually represented. It also avoids the culpability of the labour movement in creating the conditions in which someone like her could thrive. A more accurate description is that she embodied the electorate’s reaction to the future the labour movement had threatened to create through its myopic behaviour in the 1970s. The trade union movement had shown by its actions that it controlled most aspects of civil society, from the disposal of the dead to the public’s access to energy and light. The dominant question was how that power would be used in future. Until then it had been wielded disruptively, in sectional interest. What remained to be seen was whether it could be turned to constructive, responsible use in the wider society.
In many ways the answer came with the rejection of the 1977 Bullock Report on industrial democracy. That rejection reflected the dominant influence of a narrow sectional mindset among most trade union leaders and an ideologically constrained political left. The electorate faced a Labour leadership unable to influence how the unions’ enormous power was used, and so the party appeared to offer no alternative to continued industrial strife and anarchy. An incompetent trade union movement enabled Thatcher’s arrival in British politics.
Of course, the trade union movement is much less powerful today than in the 1970s. But the problems Britain will face over the next year resemble those of that decade. The inflationary wage/price spiral of the 1970s was driven by huge increases in the price of imported Middle Eastern oil. Over the next six months Britain will face an avalanche of price rises, again driven by energy prices. How does Burnham propose to deal with that? Reducing VAT on electricity will have a negligible effect on the rising cost of living.
In sum, this was a speech strong on intentions but poor on detail. Delegates were enthused by the statement of intent, but once that enthusiasm passes they will realise how little they have been told about implementation. There are intentions on council house building, electoral reform, reconsidering Brexit and reducing youth unemployment, but little on how any of it will actually happen.
Having raised enthusiasm, Burnham then felt the need to introduce a little realism. He announced that he would end the triple lock on pensions in 2030. It was a decidedly unwise move that he will likely regret and may well reverse or mitigate before the 2029 general election. One suspects he was forced into it by his Chancellor, John Healey, who appears to live in permanent fear of the bond markets.
More importantly, the decision raises doubts about whether Burnham understands the real problems he must deal with if he is to turn his intentions into reality. The UK is a currency-issuing state. Any expenditure approved by Parliament is financed by new money created by the Bank of England. The problem is never where to find the money but where to find the resources to do what we want to do. Announcing the end of the triple lock suggests Burnham has not grasped that his problem is finding resources, not money. If so, his administration will be much weakened in its ability to realise its intentions.
We said at the outset that the speech was a curious affair. Beyond the lack of detail, there was a surprising but welcome absence of any reference to fiscal rules or national defence. One expects Kemi Badenoch at the Conservative conference to call for welfare cuts to pay down the national debt and prepare for a fictitious Russian threat. Yet Burnham made only a single passing reference to NATO and Russia. That is doubly surprising given that in his recent 20 minute address to the UN General Assembly he spent almost a quarter of his time attacking Russia. His near silence on fiscal rules must have come as a welcome relief to delegates, who had listened to Rachel Reeves talk of little else over the previous two conferences.
The ostensible purpose of the Labour party conference was to give British people hope again. Burnham’s speech certainly succeeded in giving conference delegates hope again. Whether it has given the more general electorate hope again will be tested at the Holborn & St. Pancras by-election on 8th October. This has been a Labour seat since 1983. In theory it should be an easy hold. But the leader of the Green party is standing as a candidate so the outcome is in question. It will be a first test of Burnham’s vision for the country. It will be interesting to see if the electorate need more than just hope to be convinced to vote Labour.
