Who is Andy Burnham? The ‘lorry on ice’ whose biggest problem is saying no

When Andy Burnham’s allies are asked whether he will keep a grip on the public finances, they point out that he is a former chief secretary to the Treasury – the person charged with doing just that.

However, Burnham’s seven months as deputy to the chancellor Alistair Darling in 2007 was not his happiest spell as a minister. The inveterate people-pleaser wanted to say “yes” to cabinet ministers who wanted to spend more – even though a big part of his brief was to say “no”.

“He drove Alistair mad,” one cabinet colleague recalled. As Burnham admitted in his 2024 book Head North: “I’m more of a spender than a saver. I would much prefer to say ‘yes’.”

Darling, who died in 2023, is said to have described Burnham as behaving “like a lorry on ice”, because he swerved around all the time. Some Whitehall officials claim that, during his spells as culture secretary and health secretary, he was indecisive.

As prime minister, Burnham will have to learn to say “no” – not least because of the parlous state of the nation’s finances. He will have to adjudicate disputes between the Treasury and cabinet ministers. He won’t be able to please everyone. He will also have to make up his mind, and stick to it; the other parties are aching to brand him “Captain Flipflop”.

Even his Labour detractors acknowledge that Burnham is personable and likeable, with Tony Blair, not a natural soulmate, likening his “people-person” skills to those of Bill Clinton. Keir Starmer was reluctant to put his real self on public display. With Burnham, we see the real him. Being a man of the people is not an act, it is authentic.

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While I was The Independent’s political editor, I got to know Burnham. As fellow football addicts, we swapped notes about our respective teams – Everton and Spurs. It wasn’t like talking to a politician; I can testify he is no fake fan, unlike many MPs I have met.

Crucially, Burnham’s people skills should help him “tell a story” about his government in a way that Starmer failed to do even to his own MPs, let alone the voters.

Burnham’s own story began in 1970, when he was born in Aintree in Merseyside. His telephone-engineer father and GP receptionist mother moved soon afterwards to Culcheth near Warrington, a few miles from the Makerfield constituency he now represents. A Roman Catholic, Burnham attended a Church school, and he went on to study English at Cambridge University, where he suffered from “imposter syndrome”. He met his Dutch wife-to-be, Marie-France van Heel, a fellow fan of the Manchester indie band The Smiths. They have a son and two daughters.

Although he wants to distribute power from a “London-centric” political system that he says has neglected the North, Burnham spent 23 years in the Westminster village. His climb up the ladder was conventional – researcher for the late Tessa Jowell, the New Labour cabinet minister; special adviser to Chris Smith, the culture secretary – before becoming MP for his home patch of Leigh in 2001.

Another mentor was David Blunkett, the then home secretary, under whom he served as parliamentary private secretary. Burnham was seen as a Blairite, but later parted company with Blair by saying that the NHS should have “preferred provider” status, and supporting comprehensive rather than academy schools.

He fell in behind Gordon Brown after Blair’s succession in 2007, which sceptics saw as evidence that he is a political chameleon. Friends deny the charge, insisting he was loyal to whoever was Labour leader, and point to his consistency on key issues. As health secretary in 2009, Burnham repeatedly pressed Brown to take social care seriously and commit to a new tax.

“He drove Gordon mad. He said Andy wanted us to lose the next election,” one Brown ally told me. Burnham proposed a 10 per cent levy on estates when people die to fund a free national care service – dubbed a “death tax” by the Conservatives. Allies say this shows that he can take bold, tough decisions. He regards social care as unfinished business, and the still-neglected crisis may finally be gripped by his government.

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Burnham had more luck when he arm-twisted Brown into setting up an independent panel to look into the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, in which 96 Liverpool supporters died. A pivotal moment in Burnham’s career came when, as culture secretary, he was interrupted as he addressed a memorial service at Anfield 20 years after the tragedy, by fans demanding justice for the 96. “Hillsborough changed who I was as a person and as a politician,” Burnham said this week, as a long-awaited “Hillsborough Law” imposing a duty of candour on public officials was finally approved by MPs.

Burnham’s previous two attempts at winning Labour leadership contests were much more difficult than his remarkably smooth, unopposed third bid. In 2010, Burnham came fourth in a field of five, when Ed Miliband won. In 2015, he began as the frontrunner, but was overtaken by the outsider Jeremy Corbyn after getting in a pickle about whether Labour should vote against the Tory government’s welfare reforms.

Internal critics accuse Burnham of “going missing” when other senior figures tried to oust Corbyn as leader. He declined to join shadow cabinet members in resigning, and remained shadow home secretary. His priority was the Labour grassroots: increasingly disillusioned with Westminster, he decided to go for the mayoralty of Greater Manchester, and needed the members’ support. He won the post in 2017, with 63 per cent of the vote, and was re-elected with a similar share twice more.

Although Greater Manchester enjoyed a building boom and higher economic growth than the rest of the country, Burnham was the beneficiary of strong foundations laid by Richard Leese, leader of Manchester City Council, and Howard Bernstein, its chief executive. But it was Burnham who transformed the area’s bus network by putting the private operators under “public control”. He now wants to extend this key element of “Manchesterism” nationally for essential utilities like energy, water and transport.

A high point as mayor came when he accused the Tory government of treating the North with “contempt” in respect of regional lockdown restrictions during the pandemic. He was dubbed “King of the North”.

As Starmer struggled as PM, Burnham became king over the water. The nice guy displayed his ruthless streak. Louise Haigh, his close ally, admitted he had been preparing for the job of PM for at least a year. Starmer thought he had seen off the coup after Burnham overplayed his hand at last autumn’s Labour conference, and he blocked him from standing in the Gorton and Denton by-election in February. Starmer was wrong; he lacked the authority to stop Burnham from contesting last month’s by-election in Makerfield.

Perhaps the answer to the “chameleon” question is that Burnham tilts left on the economy but is conservative on social issues. In 2007, he told The Daily Telegraph there was a “moral case” for recognising marriage in the tax system, adding: “I think marriage is best for kids.”

This explanation squares with his statement last autumn that governments should not be “in hock” to the bond markets. Although he insists he supports Rachel Reeves’s fiscal rules, one MP ally told me: “I doubt he has really changed his view on the bond markets”, and saw his plan to install Shabana Mahmood as chancellor as a sign of Burnham’s “pragmatism” and desire for a “balanced ticket”.

The insider-turned-outsider is now back on the inside again, although ready to give away some of the power he now holds through his flagship devolution policy.

Which Andy Burnham will now run the country: the everyman who tries to please everybody, or the one who insists he will not “shy away” from tough decisions to balance the books, and disappoints many? We will soon find out.