Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn has taken aim at Andy Burnham, arguing that the likely next prime minister has not earned the job at the ballot box. His column, a piece of opinion rather than reporting, was published after Burnham gave a speech in Manchester at the People’s History Museum.
Littlejohn’s main complaint is about process. Burnham won a by-election in Makerfield with fewer than 30,000 votes, he wrote, and is already behaving as if he holds the office. “Andy Burnham announces that he intends to be Prime Minister for the next ten years,” the columnist wrote, ten minutes after returning to Westminster. He called Burnham “the Messiah Without A Mandate” and said he would reach Downing Street without facing hostile questions or a challenger.
The Manchester speech
According to Littlejohn, Burnham told an invited audience of regional mayors that the political centre of gravity would shift to a “Number 10 North” based in Manchester. The columnist described the plan as a ten-year programme that included nationalisation, a large council house building drive and re-industrialisation. He wrote that Burnham sounded as if he wanted to turn the clock back to 1945, and that he referred to the Peterloo Massacre of 1819.
The mayors in the front row, Littlejohn noted, were Steve Rotheram of Liverpool, Oliver Coppard of South Yorkshire, Richard Parker of the West Midlands and Tracy Brabin of West Yorkshire. He argued the idea of giving mayors more power had a poor record. Burnham claims credit for “Manchesterism,” he said, but Manchester’s renaissance began before him.
The column also attacked the substance. Littlejohn called the speech a stream of platitudes, quoting phrases such as “place-based collaboration,” and predicted that people in London and the South East would be asked to pay for regeneration in the North through higher property, wealth, death and capital gains taxes.
Scrutiny and public opinion
Littlejohn said the Mail’s Quentin Letts was denied entry to the hall, and he accused the political class of treating the succession as its own business. He pointed to talk of David Miliband returning from the United States as foreign secretary and Ed Miliband as chancellor, and noted that nobody voted for either in the roles.
He cited a poll that day showing 43 per cent of the electorate have a negative view of Burnham before he enters Downing Street. Despite whispers from Burnham’s camp, he wrote, he does not believe a snap election will be called.
Littlejohn closed with a prediction. Burnham’s rise, he wrote, is “dripping with hubris,” and from here “it’s downhill all the way.” Burnham’s response to the column was not included in the piece.
