Andy Burnham got out of a very nice-looking dark Land Rover and strolled up Downing Street to speak in front of a wall of press. He was without a lectern, taking us back to the 1990s and 2000s when premiers were able to stand and make more improvised speeches without notes. Standing opposite Downing Street with the people, not bothering to queue up at the gate with my press pass, as it was actually my day off, I watched our new leader’s first speech on my phone, my hand cupped around the speaker to amplify the sound in the crowd.
At one point, he said: “I know people at home are fed up with politics. I hear you. And I want to be honest with you. We have not been good enough, and we need to be better. We will be.” Mr Burnham added: “It’s about putting the right values and the right standards at the heart of Government.” This sounded promising, albeit very similar to what Sir Keir Starmer had said after he was appointed to the highest elected office in the land.
Appointments raise eyebrows
Anything would be better than the previous Cabinet, I tried to reassure myself. This did not last long as later that day, Louise High came strolling up Downing Street. It was widely suspected that she would get a job, as she is Mr Burnham’s right-hand woman and has been vital in his ascension to the Labour Party leadership. The new First Secretary of State, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Minister for the Cabinet Office is also a convicted fraudster. As a result, she has been stripped of her responsibility to tackle public sector fraud, which came with her Cabinet role.
If that was not bad enough, Angela Rayner is also back. This is after it was found that her failure to pay £40,000 in stamp duty on an £800,000 flat in Hove was not deliberate. Oops. That’s alright then. The cherry on the cake is that the former Deputy Prime Minister is once again the Housing Secretary. If she did not underpay tax on purpose, this suggests instead that she has little idea what she is doing when it comes to property transactions.
I would say you couldn’t write this stuff, but you very easily could, going by what sort of things we have seen in Westminster of late. Andy Burnham is claiming to be different, but to start with, at least he is proving to be more of the same.
