Can Burnham actually fix Britain? The i Paper experts’ verdicts

Andy Burnham is one step closer No 10. His win in the Makerfield by-election , beating Reform UK’s Robert Kenyon by more than 9000 votes, gives him the platform to challenge Prime Minister Keir Starmer for the top job.

It’s what many Labour MPs are hoping for – and a leadership challenge could come in the coming days . But should he win the Labour leadership, there is a question Burnham will have to answer quickly: can he actually fix Britain?

Our chief political commentator Kitty Donaldson , Labour’s former executive director of policy Andrew Fisher , and assistant editor of The Spectator magazine Isabel Hardman give their verdicts.

Kitty Donaldson: Time is not on his side

Andy Burnham certainly has a vision for the type of Britain he wants to see. But like any politician, he has two inescapable pressures : money and time.

He says neoliberalism has failed. By that he means the market is too involved in people’s day-to-day lives. Electricity, water, fuel, transport and housing are all too expensive because they are in the hands of private investors. Take them back into public ownership and the cost will go down. What’s more, the bill to the taxpayer falls too as less is spent on, for instance, housing benefit. And some economists argue it will also bring inflation down.

But – and there is a big but – the upfront costs of part or full renationalisation of essential services could be huge and the country is bound by both the fiscal rules and the ire of the bond markets, who could frown upon a spending spree by pushing up borrowing costs.

Burnham has some bold ideas : replicating his Manchester Bee Network of yellow buses across the country and capping fares is just a few. But not only does it cost money, it also takes time.

He is also bound by the election cycle, with at most three years to prove to the country he is at least on the path to fixing some of the UK’s most intractable and structural problems. His consensus-driven style also doesn’t lend itself to quick-fix solutions.

And all the while he’ll have Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and Zack Polanski’s Greens breathing down his neck from opposite directions and spooking Labour MPs.

Kitty Donaldson is The i Paper ‘s chief political commentator

Andrew Fisher: Burnham’s boldness will fix Britain

At the end of 2023, I published a research paper called “What’s in the in-tray of an incoming Labour government?”, which suggested Labour needed to spend an additional £70bn a year to get public services back on track.

Co-written with former shadow chancellor John McDonnell MP, we analysed with increasing despair the inheritance of an incoming Labour government. Despair turned to horror with the publication of Labour’s 2024 manifesto, which was simply not up to the task of delivering the change promised.

Labour failed to grasp the nettle on tax before the election – and was left rudderless when faced with the realities of governing Britain’s multiple crises.

Burnham has the strongest credentials of any potential leader – and the scale of his victory in Makerfield confirmed it. According to some polls , he is the country’s only popular politician.

He is not tarnished by the various mis-steps of the Labour government to date, and unlike Starmer, has shown an ability to take on power and win – whether that’s over Hillsborough or in the battle to take back control of Greater Manchester’s buses.

Britain can be fixed, but it will take political capital and financial capital . Starmer tried to duck both those realities and failed. In talking about wanting “to end 40 years of trickle-down economics”, and “to bring down water bills, energy bills, to make life more affordable again”, Burnham has shown he gets the scale of the task and suggests he will take bold action.

That at least is a better starting point than Labour’s timid approach to date.

Andrew Fisher served as the Labour Party’s executive director of policy under Jeremy Corbyn

He has shown an ability to take on power and win – whether that’s over Hillsborough or in the battle to take back control of Greater Manchester’s buses, writes Andrew Fisher (Photo: Ian Forsyth/Getty)

Isabel Hardman: Burnham will do better than Starmer

Andy Burnham plans to make all his policy decisions in parliament on the basis of the “Makerfield test”: that if an idea doesn’t work for the voters of the constituency that just sent him back to Westminster, then it shouldn’t be introduced at all. It was a nice pitch in the by-election, but Burnham can’t surely think national politics is going to be that simple – can he?

He has tried to show that he understands the painful trade-offs facing a prime minister at the moment: he says he will cut the benefits bill to fund defence, but below that headline is a plan for getting people back into work that, while entirely noble in its motivations, is not going to deliver the upfront savings required for the defence investment plan. Effective welfare reform tends to involve spending quit…