- A river runs through it part one - 17th August 2026
- Nigel Farrago - 14th August 2026
- Struck out - 14th August 2026
Just days into his Premiership, the backlash has already begun against Andy Burnham – with huge concern raised about his attitude towards media freedom, the importance of which The Eye’s Editor, Welshman Phil Parry has written many times.
One outlet (Guido Fawkes) has declared that there is a “media clampdown”, while in a leading article of another it was proclaimed: “Burnham’s unwillingness to face the media should worry us all”.
Earlier this month Mr Burnham’s friendship with Hugh Grant (who may become an adviser on media issues), was seized on by a number of platforms.
One published: ‘...this friendship has taken a worrying turn. Grant is positioning himself as an adviser on press freedom to our likely future premier. The veteran actor and press regulation campaigner had this to say last week: “As we switch leadership of the Labour Party, switch prime ministers, there’s a chance finally to get something done”‘.
This could be alarming for critics like Phil, but no less so than for those people having to learn a NEW set of names as Mr Burnham announces his cabinet, and the merry-go-round of highly-paid people begins again!
John Healey as Chancellor was an unexpected choice, but less surprising perhaps in the circumstances was Stephen Kinnock as Secretary of State for Wales.
At an event in London the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood (who retains her job as Home Secretary) made the declaration of Mr Burnham’s party leadership.
What we have seen is disconcerting because it is only relatively recently that we had an election to the Welsh Parliament/Senedd Cymru (WP/SC), when the new First Minister of Wales (FMW) Plaid Cymru’s (Plaid) Rhun ap Iorwerth brought in HIS supporters as WELSH ministers, and voters had only just learnt the names of the LAST lot!
For example, there was the obscure Julie James who was made Welsh Counsel General in 2024, alongside being appointed Minister for Delivery.
The then First Minister of Wales (FMW) Eluned Morgan (ANOTHER name which will soon be forgotten!) also nominated the unknown Vikki Howells as Minister for Further and Higher Education.
The poor voter may be getting tired of this incredible churn, and election fatigue might set in.
Stephen’s father Neil Kinnock, merited a special mention by Mr Burnham in his Labour victory speech, and he was something of a model in his job as mayor of Greater Manchester.
Yet famously Mr Kinnock NEVER won a General Election (GE), so it could be argued that comparing yourself to him, is comparing yourself to a loser!
These events are highly unusual, because like Gordon Brown before him, Mr Burnham was long seen as the hot favourite, so he has secured the Prime Ministership (PM) without another candidate standing against him.
But it is unique only two years into a parliament, where the incumbent has swept to power with a thumping majority of 411 MPs, and onlookers fear that this bizarre event could further undermine voter disillusionment, with it making unfortunate headlines in UK newspapers, such as “Who voted for Burnham?..” in The Times, and “…we want an election now (emphasised)“ in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday (MoS).
Political stability, he has argued, must deliver tangible improvements to people’s lives, and he has promised to “give Britain more breathing space” – this is a phrase which echoes Sir Keir Starmer’s pledge at the start of HIS premiership to “tread more lightly on your lives”.
Yet this doesn’t actually mean anything, and now that he is in office he is confronted with hard realities.
Mean wages have grown by just one per cent in real terms since 2024, and by a paltry 4.5 per cent since April 2008 (a third as quickly as American wages).
More trouble could lie ahead too, if Artificial Intelligence (AI) displaces the legions of white-collar knowledge workers who make up the UK economy’s backbone.
Low growth is also bad for the ailing public finances.
Public spending has risen from 39 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2019-20 to 45 per cent today.
An ageing population and rising defence commitments could push it higher still, with tax revenues (37 per cent of GDP) struggling to cover Mr Burnham’s largesse.
Nor will greater borrowing help, because debt interest this year will cost £109 billion (more than the education budget), and bond investors charge the UK higher interest rates than any other big rich country, so they jump at the slightest hint of profligacy.
Since warning last year that we are too “in hock” to the bond markets, Mr Burnham has toned things down a little – suggesting that he supported the UK Government’s current fiscal rules and would have a plan to get debt down.
By their nature, the rules (self-imposed limits on borrowing and debt), are a straitjacket worn by successive administrations to reassure those in the £2.9 trillion market for UK government debt that Britain is a safe bet.
His is an extraordinary rise.
Mr Burnham had only returned to Parliament just over a month ago in a by-election, with his victory convincing many Labour MPs he was the right candidate to replace Sir Keir.
But critics fear that his taking over now as Prime Minister (PM) without a mandate from a General Election (GE), will further hasten an already steep decline in voter turnout at elections.
In 1945 the turnout figure was 83.9 percent, but at the 2024 one it was about 60 percent, the lowest since 2001, when it was 59.4 percent. This 2024 figure came even after the drama of Brexit, and the extraordinary spectacle of witnessing ministers, as well as PMs come and go.
Other senior Labour figures (such as centrist one-time UK health secretary Wes Streeting), abandoned their own leadership ambitions and got behind Mr Burnham, along with the overwhelming majority of the party’s MPs.
Mr Burnham has also made plenty of promises in relation to spending, but could be unable to implement many of them, because the UK is in such deep financial trouble, and this, too, may endorse the view among voters that there is little point in trudging to the polling booth, as nothing changes.
This may become part of the backlash against our new PM as well – or as his civil servants might say: “Beware of ‘unintended consequences!'”.
The memories of our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry’s extraordinary decades long award-winning career in journalism (when the turnover of senior political leaders was nothing like as great as today in the beginning), during which he was gripped by the rare neurological disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A Good Story’. Order it now.
Tomorrow – during 23 years with BBC Cymru Wales (BBC CW), and 42 years in journalism (when he was trained to use clear and simple language, avoiding jargon), watching the behaviour of leaders has always been paramount for Phil but today there is increasing criticism that Mr Burnham won’t submit himself to a General Election (GE), while another has ruled out elections ALTOGETHER!
