For a man who seems to see himself as capable of the feat of saving the Labour Party, Andy Burnham is already proving himself wrong. This first struck me when he called for a “rolling back of the 1980s” in a nationalisation drive for key utilities. Despite agreeing with him that rail, at the very least, should be nationalised, I’m struck by how this creature of the Blairite era of spin could say something so stupid. Because his notion of rolling back the 1980s begs the question of what came before. It invites the Tories and Reform to bang on about how Labour wants to drag us back to the 1970s, just like they did during the disastrous leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.
I believe that there are a great many people in this country, possibly even the majority, who have had enough of the Tories trying to out-Thatcher Maggie and favour a swing away from the worship of privatisation and toward conservative national solidarity. But I question whether you’re up to the task of saving such a battered party when you’re writing your opposition’s headlines before you’ve even got to the top job.
Fine, he doesn’t need such people’s votes to get the top job, he just needs to become an MP and persuade the Labour Party. But saving Labour means more than becoming its leader; it means stewarding it through a successful premiership – and I’d say the chances of that are nil.
This brings me to the second mistake Burnham is making. He fundamentally misunderstands how disgusted the average Brit is with the Labour Party.
There are the bog-standard political complaints relating to the removal of Winter Fuel Payments, inflation and our increasingly impotent economy.
There’s the very modern malady of the Labour’s flirtation with trans rights extremists, which saw Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield hounded from the party by its own MPs and activists.
And then there are profound, history-defining moral complaints that stretch back decades, from Tony Blair’s initiation of mass migration without a mandate, an opposition to Brexit that betrayed Labour’s own traditions, the rewarding of October 7’s atrocities with recognition of a Palestinian state, to the grooming gangs scandal.
There are certain things we don’t know for sure about Labour’s handling of the rape of largely white working class girls by predominantly Pakistani-heritage men, but here’s a few things we know for certain:
Ann Cryer, Labour MP for Keighley, was shunned by members of her own party for speaking out about the issue in 2002 and had to put up with cowards in her party telling her privately she was brave for speaking out, while doing nothing to raise the alarm themselves. Shahid Malik, of Labour’s National Executive, said her comments were “dangerous and irresponsible”.
Rotherham MP Sarah Champion was sacked – sorry, “resigned” – after highlighting the scandal in a 2017 op-ed for The Sun. Cartoonish Comrade Corbyn assured the public that his party would not “demonise any particular group”.
In January 2025, Oldham councillors were denied a government inquiry into grooming gangs by safeguarding minister Jess Phillips, who said the council would have to undertake it themselves. In the same month, Keir Starmer blocked a national inquiry into grooming gangs across the country.
In June 2025, Labour finally agreed to a national inquiry.
Frankly, at this point it’s doubtful that even Jesus Christ himself could unite the United Kingdom behind the Labour Government.
I’ve long-held the wish that the Labour Party will die some sort of death, to be reborn or replaced by a proper left-wing party that actually cares about patriotic working class voters.
Such an outfit should be welcomed even by right-wingers and would make our adversarial Parliament all the richer by taking its opponents to task on issues that really matter.
The alternative is that somebody of superhuman abilities manages to persuade the British public that the monster into which Labour has morphed is worthy of fealty.
I met Andy Burnham once as a young reporter in Dagenham. Once he’d got a crap joke out of the way about “taking out the press” while seated in a small model car, he warmed to me when I told him I was from Bolton. North-western solidarity seemed to kick in and he seemed like a decent bloke who cared.
A fellow journalist and close friend once met another politician who gave a similar impression. That politician is now our Prime Minister.
Neither is capable of saving the wretched wreck that is the Labour Party. And that should be celebrated.