It feels odd to start an article about Andy Burnham’s first speech to Parliament as Prime Minister by skipping past the speech, but that’s what I’m going to do.
There’s something a little painful about watching the PM wearing a suit and reading from a script, as he did at the despatch box today.
I’m sure Burnham wouldn’t invite the comparison, but I feel the same when watching Donald Trump recite lines from an autocue – it’s simply not what he wants to be doing, and he seems impatient to get to the next bit.
Looking down from the press gallery this afternoon, I got the sense that Burnham really wanted to tear off the tie, step to his right and address MPs off the cuff without the desk in the way.
The speech – which he introduced grandly as a ‘statement on the direction in which I will lead our country’ – reprised similar themes from others he’s given in the past month or two: devolution, public control, reindustrialisation.
So if you’re thinking of watching it to get a proper sense of the new PM, I would suggest jumping it and going straight to what happened afterwards.
This was Kemi Badenoch’s opportunity to ask Burnham a few questions about his statement – her first opportunity (as she pointed out) to ask him anything since he became leader of the country six weeks ago.
She took the same approach as she always did against Sir Keir Starmer: acerbic, swaggering, leaning into her pantomime villain role for Labour MPs.
All the time, Burnham was scribbling down notes on the back of the pages containing his speech. He’d occasionally look up at Badenoch before going back to scribbling.
And when he jumped up for the rebuttal, the contrast to his predecessor couldn’t be starker.
Starmer was never somebody who revelled in the theatre of the House of Commons – perhaps that’s one of the reasons he’s decided to walk away rather than face another three years on the back benches.
Whenever he had to deliver responses to the opposition, he would rely on a soundboard of stock phrases: ’14 years of Conservative government’; ‘£22 billion black hole’; ‘the Liz Truss mini-budget’.
That last one was a favourite, as it would always get a loud response from the Labour MPs behind him.
So, it was a bit of a surprise when Burnham’s first mention of Liz Truss was a compliment – albeit for her work in Ukraine, rather than her economic prowess.
Here was a PM who was keen to express his willingness to work with politicians of all stripes if they were genuinely interested in a solution. He mentioned twice his ambition to work across the House.
But at the same time, he acknowledged there were deep disagreements and relished the idea of arguing over them. He might say his mother never bred a jibber.
That’s another point of contrast with Starmer, who never seemed that interested in political debate.
When faced with inevitable jeers from the Tory benches after claiming the UK is still battling the legacy of the Thatcher government in the 1980s, Burnham appealed to them: ‘Well, let’s have this argument in this House.’
And a third difference with the previous PM: Burnham genuinely seemed to be having a good time in his new role.
There were a few light-hearted quips among the scribbles on his paper including, it must be said, a second mention of Liz Truss.
After Badenoch raised the length of his term in office so far, Burnham told MPs: ‘The honourable lady said the fact that I have been in my position for 43 days.
‘Well, can I turn that around and say, in six days this government will have outlived the Truss government and we’ll be here for a lot, lot longer.’
That may be the case – but the question remains over whether this PM’s sharp change in approach will be enough to win around the country by the time we next go to the polls.
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