Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting have hit back at Sir Tony Blair, accusing him of misunderstanding modern politics in his attack on the Labour government. The former Labour prime minister urged his party not to move to the left and to embrace the “radical centre” in a highly critical 5,700-word essay published on Wednesday.
Sir Tony also warned Labour that they were “playing with fire” over the UK’s future and lacked a “coherent plan”, while urging Labour MPs to avoid a “personality contest” or backing a change at the top without first deciding on its policy direction. However, Mr Burnham and Mr Streeting, who are both potential Labour leadership challengers to Sir Keir Starmer, suggested the former leader had overlooked how inequality is shaping modern politics.
Mr Burnham, who is hoping to win a parliamentary seat at the Makerfield by-election next month, suggested that Sir Tony was out of touch and partly to blame for the rise of politicians like Nigel Farage, while noting that Sir Tony "doesn't mention inequality once" in his essay. The Greater Manchester mayor said: “If you don’t get how that’s driving politics now, if you are not rooting your analysis in the fact that people are unable to live and that things that were taken for granted are no longer affordable, then you are not understanding what’s going on.”
Former Health Secretary Mr Streeting echoed this view, arguing the “striking weakness at the heart of Sir Tony Blair’s intervention” is the lack of mention of inequality. Writing in The Guardian, he said: “Across thousands of words about technology, geopolitics and political strategy, the defining issue of our age is barely confronted at all. Inequality - the economic, social and democratic fracture running through modern Britain - is treated as peripheral rather than fundamental.”
In his essay, Sir Tony called on Labour to occupy the “radical centre” and warned that Britain was “caught between the isolationist tendency of parts of the right, and the misguided progressivism of parts of the left”. He also criticised Mr Burnham for claiming Britain has been "on the wrong path for 40 years" - a period that includes Sir Tony's 10 years in power.
