‘Manchesterism’ Arrives at 10 Downing Street

Prime Minister Andy Burnham sailed into 10 Downing Street unopposed — but one could be forgiven for thinking his campaign was against Margaret Thatcher’s ghost. Mr. Burnham devoted his first speech as Labor leader and his maiden one as prime minister to decrying the “mistakes of the 1980s.” While he shrank from mentioning the Iron Lady by name, he expresses disdain for “privatization” and vows to bring “life’s essentials under state control.”Mr. Burnham calls his premiership a “circuit-breaker” moment for Britain, though his yen for the 1970s could make it more of a short-circuit. Last year the new premier told Renewal magazine that he was “happy to call myself a socialist.” On Thursday, he lamented that the “country surrendered control of the essentials — housing, water, energy, transport — and left people exposed to higher costs.” He calls his election a “significant change moment.”Mr. Burnham regrets that under Thatcher “economic power was privatized.” Yet Thatcher’s reforms — premised on deregulation and lower taxes — unleashed Britain’s economy and made the nation more prosperous. A researcher at the Henry Jackson Society, Emma Schubart, tells Fox News that Mr. Burnham comes across as “pretty economically illiterate” and that his “demonization” of Thatcher policies is “strange and needless.”Now, in any event, the nation appears set to be administered a dose of “Manchesterism,” which Mr. Burnham has described as the “end of neo-liberalism” and “business friendly socialism.” He reckons that Manchester’s success — he was mayor for nine years — “comes from not leaving everything to the market — but public intervention where necessary to set higher ambitions.” Some have compared Mr. Burnham to New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani.Mr. Burnham, though, served under prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, both of whom adopted, or kept, elements of Thatcher’s program. Mr. Burnham appears set on a leftward course. The New Yorker quotes a Labour apparatchik reflecting that “nobody is entirely sure what ‘Manchesterism’ is beyond being a brilliant comms coup i.e. Burnham seems to have convinced a lot of people that Manchesterism exists, made it part of his brand.”The comings and goings on Monday at 10 Downing resembled London’s King Cross. The appointment as Chancellor of the Exchequer of John Healey came after he resigned as Defense Secretary in June over Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s failure to adequately spend on Britain’s military. The new foreign secretary is a former leader of the Labor Party, Ed Milliband, who in 2013 voted to block military action against President Assad of Syria.Mr. Burnham has kept on as home secretary Shabana Mahmood. A relative hardliner — within Labour — on immigration, that could be an effort to arrest the surge of Reform UK. Mr. Burnham, the so-called “King of the North,” comes to claim the crown of the premiership never having faced the voters in a general election — and not a single candidate challenged him within his own party.The New York Times reckons that the “speed of Mr. Burnham’s ascent to the top job in British politics is striking.” So too, though, was the victory secured by Sir Keir just two years ago. His success was short-lived as Britons groaned under a stagnant economy. Mr. Burnham, while a more gifted communicator than his predecessor, appears set to double down on his mistakes. The Iron Lady could yet have the last laugh.

‘Manchesterism’ Arrives at 10 Downing Street

‘Manchesterism’ Arrives at 10 Downing Street

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