The big mistakes Andy Burnham must avoid in his first 20 days as Prime Minister – Brian Wilson

The beginner’s guide to getting everything wrong has been provided by Morgan McSweeney, who was Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, and has broken his merited period of silence in a podcast with Nick Robinson. It is difficult to hear his confessional without a sense of incredulity and breach of trust.

How could such amateurism and incompetence have been allowed to prevail in these early days of Starmer’s reign? How could the thirst for change which drove the general election landslide have been replaced so quickly by disappointment bordering on despair?

READ MORE: Andy Burnham must learn lessons from Keir Starmer's failure to 'prepare' for Downing Street

The crucial first steps

Mr McSweeney takes refuge in the indisputable truth that the Starmer government was entering “a very different era” from 1997. So what? Things usually change in the space of 27 years. However, some political fundamentals remain the same and they included the need to prepare, meticulously, for government and crucial first steps.

Those of us who had been through the 1997 experience were increasingly puzzled about why the template was not being followed. Why was expertise from that era not being drawn on? Instead, according to Mr McSweeney, “during planning meetings” in early 2024, he “did start to realise that we hadn’t done enough to prepare for government”.

He recalled a widespread expectation that Labour would need two elections to return to power, and "quite a lot of people" thought it needed a plan for defeat rather than victory in 2024. Was nobody noticing the disintegration of the Tory government?

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Labour overtook the Tories in opinion polls in late 2021 and that was pre-Liz Truss. From then onwards, there was hardly anybody who did not expect Labour to win the next general election. Yet this eventuality, by his own account, started troubling Mr McSweeney just a few months before polling day. No wonder it all went wrong.

No wonder they walked into the Treasury trap – which Tory Chancellors repeatedly knocked back – of removing winter fuel payments. Anybody with a scintilla of political sense could have told them this was not the signature policy from an incoming Labour government that people expected. Where in contrast were early symbols of radical change?

My guess is there were too many bright young things, less clever than they assumed themselves to be, already jostling for influence and position, with little interest in learning from past experience or with any understanding of the extent to which first impressions shape lasting perceptions of a government.

READ MORE: Andy Burnham: Here is my pitch to Scotland

Experience and a positive message

Anyway, all that is history which, as it turned out, did irreparable damage to Starmer’s Prime Ministership. As far as the future is concerned, the message could not be clearer for Burnham – get experience around him and generate positivity from the moment he takes over.

As a string of Tory Prime Ministers discovered, the additional difficulty, for those who achieve office through party coup rather than the ballot box, is that when they talk about “the last government”, people tend to think of their immediate predecessor rather than the guilty parties sitting opposite.

Yet the Tory legacy remains an essential part of the case Burnham must prosecute. Ironically, Starmer’s best effort at pinning responsibility came at his penultimate Prime Minister’s Questions, when he let loose on the sheer effrontery of Kemi Badenoch over defence spending and public services.

As he pointed out, their tactic is never to defend their record. There is not even the pretence of “we handed you a golden inheritance and you messed up” that we used to hear whenever a Labour government took over the mess. Instead, they rely on the electorate’s willingness to gradually forget the damage done by Cameron and Osborne, Johnson and Truss, etc. Not to mention Badenoch herself.

Not a bad record

Understandably, Starmer is using the remaining days in office to challenge perceptions of his time in office. He should have done it sooner because, like all Labour governments, his has delivered changes on many fronts, large and small, for which it will never get credit – and certainly won’t if those who benefit aren’t told.

On the big issues that the general election was fought on, Starmer’s government has done pretty well within the space of two years. The reduction in illegal immigration is quite remarkable. There are steady falls to report in NHS waiting lists in England. The economy, if not exactly booming, is doing better than our G7 comparators. It’s not a bad record to be sacked for.

So Burnham has to play his hand with care. He must acknowledge these successes while carving out his own attractive policy initiatives. It is still a Labour government and most of those on the benches behind him want to hear the positive aspects of the past two years proclaimed, rather than ignored.

There is much in Burnham’s agenda, insofar as we know it, that sounds attractive. His theme of decentralisation away from Whitehall is long overdue and his ambitions to bring more powers to cities and regions will be music to many ears. Who knows, it might even catch on in Scotland.

Will Burnham succeed in applying the political Midas touch which he is credited with in Manchester to the whole country? There will be a lot of goodwill behind him and many who were disappointed in Starmer will be prepared to give Labour a second chance under new and dynamic leadership.

Let’s just say that will be in a better position to judge – 20 days after the King of the North moves into Downing Street.