The fight for No 11

Does journalism change anything? From satirical AI slop to stat-heavy Substacks, there’s now so much political commentary around that it’s easy to shrug it off. That would be wrong. Take Joshi Herrmann, a reporter who has written for most of the nationals and in 2020 set up the Mill, a Manchester-based online publication, where he has posted his analysis of Andy Burnham. His conclusions – which he shares in this week’s magazine – have been reposted by most serious Westminster journalists who know they don’t know Manchester. That is a win for the north, and Britain’s resurgent non-metropolitan journalism.

Herrmann, in essence, sees Burnham as an excellent and empathetic communicator who isn’t much interested in policy detail, changes his mind and takes credit for other people’s work. He says that Burnham might not make a great prime minister – although you could say that all of the above is a CV for the top job, just so long as it’s combined with a strong team and a readiness to listen to them.

Chancellor choices

Every Labour activist tells me that Burnham has a hell of a fight on his hands in the Makerfield by-election. He has rightly devolved a lot of the “what if I win?” planning to others. But it’s already clear that the fight for No 11 would be crucial if Burnham toppled Keir Starmer. Treasury people want Rachel Reeves to go, but does the King of the North lean towards Ed Miliband, with whom he’s talking almost daily, or Wes Streeting, the most formidable figure to his right?

Miliband is articulate and would safeguard his net-zero agenda from the Treasury. Streeting would provide protection from the bond markets, which a soft-left supremacy would struggle with, allowing Burnham to push his agenda without looking over his shoulder.

A breath of fresh air

The crucial thing for Burnham is to inject energy and a sense of unity across the party. Ideas are already bubbling up again all over. Growth must be the overall unifying issue. As Ben Glover wrote for the New Statesman, “Manchesterism” needs an industrial policy and a procurement policy alongside devolution and the return of public ownership. Burnham agrees.

As in the Brexit years, Westminster has become a languid hothouse that needs fresh ideas; Manchester, which brought the world free-trade liberalism and Marxism, sounds like a good place to start.

If Burnham wins Makerfield, and Lord Starmer of the Arsenal lets him into Downing Street, then a key policy would be electoral reform. That would allow an alliance with the Liberal Democrats. Given how very short any honeymoon period would be, bet next on a general election, perhaps early next year.

Bureaucracy on tap

In Ireland and across Europe, you can buy non-alcoholic Guinness – an excellent tipple – in draught form. But not here. As one of millions who wants a good, social night out without getting hammered, it’s very frustrating.

The reason is bureaucratic inertia. Nagardo is a natural ingredient needed to stabilise the drink in kegs. It’s considered safe in Australia, the US and Europe, including Ireland – and Northern Ireland. But in the rest of the UK, thanks to the Food Standards Agency, it isn’t. Nagardo’s fine in Belfast, but dangerous in Liverpool. What’s the FSA drinking?

Remembering Robert, and Russia

Ambling around the smaller streets of Westminster, in search of a sandwich and coffee, I frequently used to talk to a real intellectual, Robert Skidelsky, who died in April. He is most famous as the biographer and defender of Keynes. Politically he was a billiard ball, ricocheting from Labour to the SDP, cannoning from there to the Tories, and from the Tories clicking to neutrality with a growing environmentalist tinge.

He always had an opinion to share; one never knew quite what it was going to be. But in recent years, his reputation plummeted because of his hostility to Nato helping Ukraine in its war against Russia. I never understood his reasoning. He would offer long articles to explain himself; I gently fended them off. Now that he’s gone, I feel bad about it.

Being of Russian descent, Skidelsky was a lifelong Russophile, teaching himself his parents’ language in old age. Like many, he felt that the dark curtain falling between Putin’s Russia and the West was tragic, a personal amputation. But whose fault is that? Putin’s paranoid nationalism and the carnage of young Russians is doing that nation irreversible damage. A great European civilisation, with authors, musicians and artists unthinkable anywhere else, is choking itself to death. Skidelsky understood that. I’d love to have heard the voice of Keynes on Manchesterism, a pavement talk that will now never happen.

[Further reading: Is it time for Labour’s first female leader?]