Inside The Labour Party Conference: Andy Burnham Lays Out Vision For UK In ‘Astonishing’ Speech

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1:01Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here with Forbes. Joining me once again is Dr. Martin Farr. He's a senior lecturer in contemporary British history at Newcastle University. Dr. Farr, thanks so much for coming back on. Pleasure. As you can see from behind you, you are at the Labor Party Conference. The theme is hope again. It's plastered behind you three times. We know that's the theme. And this is the first party conference that has happened since Andy Burnham has become prime minister. And he's been in that position now. He's been serving for less than 80 days. You're clearly on the ground there.

1:38You're in Liverpool at the conference. So to start off the conversation, what is the mood like there? It's the essential question to ask. And the mood of the party has almost been a party. It's very contrasting with last year. and the year before. And the year before, 2024, was the first conference after a massive election victory, and yet the mood was quite downbeat, in large part, I think, because the Prime Minister himself, Sir Keir Starmer, had underplayed the significance of the victory. He gave a rather pessimistic speech in the grounds of Downing Street, so things would get worse before they got better.

2:14And he punctured the mood quite considerably, as well as the fact that he was not a person who had the personality or the kind of vibe to inspire enthusiasm amongst members, even though they'd won an election. So in many ways, this is the election, this is the conference we didn't have two years ago. It has been an extremely light-hearted, happy fair. And I think the reaction to the speech yesterday was unlike anything I've seen. This is Andy Burnham's hometown. Behind my camera, I can see the Mersey. It's been glorious weather, which is very unusual for this part of the world the weather's assisted the mood and the fact that he is so effortlessly charismatic as a politician now of course that doesn't mean he can do other things as well but in terms of the retail element of politics i don't think there's been a british prime minister who's been as effective a communicator as this in my lifetime and i can't think of one from an earlier period either where it's very hard to compare because of the way in which politicians relate to the media.

3:14Nor can I think of a prime minister who is so overly personalized, his tenure as prime minister, as this one has. It's very unusual. It's high risk, but it's potentially high reward. I want to talk about that because that's the sentiment from a lot of people on the ground there, right? That this is a once in a lifetime speech that Annie Burnham gave. I watched it. It was just a little over an hour long. And like you said, it was punctuated with personal stories. He talked about his grandparents owning the home that he was born in. He talked about this Britain that his dad loved so much. He talked about how his grandma was in a care home.

3:55She had her engagement ring ripped out from her finger. He got very emotional at one point talking about his father who recently passed away. And it reminded me from across the pond over here to an Obama speech. The theme, like I said, hope again, Obama, as we know, his campaign slogan in 2008 was hope. The BBC said that he got over at least 11 sending ovations in that almost or over hour long speech. Was this speech well received? What were some of those parts that stuck out to you? It was very well received. He mentioned, I mean, The docks I'm looking out on now, he mentioned his grandfather was a docker here 40 or 50 years ago.

4:37He had a personal story, which he related very well to the audience. But it's worth comparing. I couldn't stop comparing things of last year. And just sometimes we're told that personality doesn't really matter in politics. But to compare the last leader and this leader is to see, I mean, almost a different galaxy, a different language of communication and politics. Keir Starmer himself had a very powerful and affecting personal story. He came from a working class background, as Andy Burnham did, but he wasn't really able to convince or to convey or to spread a narrative in the way that Burnham can.

5:12Now, you should be stressed that for many people, Burnham's, I'll put this informally, his northern schtick, his coming across as being a person outside of London who speaks the way he speaks and is with the people, already greats with many voters and with many commentators. When he mentions Manchester now, he's been mayor of Greater Manchester, he mentions that in the House of Commons, there's groaning because it's becoming almost a cliché performance. So I think he's smart enough to read the room and know when not to do that. But yesterday was a time to do that. And it was an astonishing speech, particularly given those of us who know him.

5:48And he's been around for a long time. He's been a public figure for 30 years, Andy Burnham. He's a new prime minister. He has the freshness of being a new prime minister, of having a youthfulness that belies the fact that he's been knocking around in politics since the end of the last century. But he was able to do it. I knew him not to be a very good platform speaker, not a great orator. He has the ability to extemporise charismatically, emotively with individuals. He can do extempore speeches and talks like no one else. But he was not known to be a good platform speaker, rather wooden sometimes.

6:22He didn't play to his strengths. What he did yesterday was he had the prompters around him. You can see his eyes watching the prompters. But as he did on the first day of being prime minister in Downing Street, he spoke to the media. He did not have, as Keir Starmer had, Keir Starmer had the thought yesterday, was rather like one of these Greek mythological figures who was half man, half lectern. He would clasp it and stand there and speak as if he were behind a lectern. And Burnham didn't use that. Then or now, he walked around. he emoted indeed I can't remember and I don't know of an occasion when a prime minister or party leader has tried or at least teared up in a speech now that won't be everyone's cup of tea that would be overly emotive perhaps for some it will be insincere for others would you mention his father and he has the misfortune of his father dying a fortnight ago but his father framing one of the big messages he has and always has that actually as a politician which is to have and this is the party of the national health service even though it's supposed to be run by the conservatives in office the party that gave birth to the national health service which is absolutely essential to this party's sense of belief sense of belonging sense of purpose is what he calls a national care service which is an enormously ambitious uh plan to try and do what we had 70 years ago with the national health service when life expectancy was much shorter now we have the issues and concerns of old age illnesses and in particular dementia and social care.

7:49Extremely naughty, extremely expensive in an Asian population but he could frame it through his father's experience in a way which will leave many questions open to voters and to commentators this morning but conveys it as a policy issue, as an agenda for his next government possibly. This was in many ways a speech about what he would like to be able to do if he had an election manifesto in this pocket where he can get the voters support and if you like a mandate he's he's compromised by inheriting Keir Starmer's manifesto and he could change if he wanted to but it would look very bad it would pull into question his legitimacy were he to veer very dramatically from what party was elected on two years ago I think that when I was watching his speech and then I was looking at commentary after I was struck by everyone talking about the contrast between Annie Burnham and Keir Starmer.

8:44That was first, policy second. So I do want to just put a pin in that when there is this such big contrast between Keir Starmer and Annie Burnham, I know in America, there's this litmus text right in politics of, can I grab a beer with that person? And if people feel like they can't, you know, that politician doesn't really last that long. And it seems like from what you're saying, there's this real sense that Annie Burnham, people feel that they could grab a beer with him he got emotional points he got personal people seems like kind of have a glimpse into who he is right now but when it comes to the policy side is there a lot of daylight between what Andy Burnham was introducing yesterday and what Keir Starmer had for two years that's a really interesting point and when you say that I suddenly had Albert Gore and George W Bush in mind uh so Keir Starmer was the Al Gore of your metaphor and And Starmer is the George W.

9:40Bush, a regular guy you have a barbecue with. And of course, Bush's presidency was utterly transformed by events on September. And Burnham, too, started this conference on Sunday morning with an interview with the BBC where he mentioned the care service. And then we had this terrorist or alleged terrorist attack at RF Fairfield in Gloucestershire, where the US Air Force is based. And suddenly this became conferences. It's worth pointing out. It's a very political affair. It's exclusively political. So this is a governing party, and ministers and the MPs and the Prime Minister are all here in the hotel behind me.

10:15But the civil service aren't here, which is not meant to be a governing event. It's a political event. And yet, as they're in government, events intrude and intervene. So he found himself conducting high-level security meetings and briefings with the Americans over this apparent... We don't think so now. It's a rather murky story, what's happened in RFGOS and RFF. but nevertheless dragged to the fact that the prime minister is always in trawl through events and so he's setting up this agenda but also he has to respond to things as they occur and i suppose before i come to answer your question in a very roundabout way he is a uniquely domestically focused prime minister he has no history of or interest in foreign affairs really he met donald trump last week at new york for the united nation general assembly as he has to do he will find himself dragged into that as Starmer did but Starmer was happy to be dragged into it because he was so infelicitous to say domestically he was so inept domestically uh that the and this happens with presidents and prime ministers after usually many more years in office they're drawn to symmetry they're drawn to the clarity of international meetings and meeting other heads of government rather than the murky swamp of their own politics but in terms of what he's trying to set out they are very different policies he can't raise taxes significantly which is the key to what he wants to do the manifesto binds him to not raising taxes in the three main tax areas however as indications of where he wants to go in terms of the national care service in terms of electoral reform in terms of modifying pensions a much much bolder statement and prospectus than kirsten ever gave he was defined by timidity but as being defined by the exuberance of the life of his personality and the fact that there's a very recognizable person to be blamed if things aren't delivered and delivery i think is peach burnham when he first came onto the stage he said something to the effect of you know i really want to give this tub thumping speech as a politician kind of get the crowd going but i need to be honest and the patriot in me wants to give something different and i need to be honest with the country and he talked about a whole host of things like like you said, modifying the pension program, which he said that he might have to pay a political price for.

12:30But if he has to, so be it. Someone has to. Was that all taken as him being brave, him being honest, him talking about the debt, him saying we need some real fiscal responsibility here? Were all of his policies taken well at the conference? Well, his critics, the Conservative Party, for example, and Reform UK, Nigel Farage's party, immediately described this or defined it as being another Labour tax and spend government. And I long thought in the Starmer years, when it was clear this was not working as a government or working as a prime minister, that people increasingly were mentioning Burnham as a more challenging.

13:11And as I said, I've known about Burnham for many years, but we've got to the same age. I never thought he was the answer to the Labour Party's problem, because the Labour Party and Conservative Party only ever win elections and are re-elected when they occupy loosely defined the centre of ground of politics, where they don't alienate or scare voters, to put it frankly. Starmer was limited enormously by inheriting a party that had, under Jeremy Corbyn, personally did terrified voters, and basically he over-corrected. And that's why the manifesto was so timid, and that's why an enormous majority on a very low vote share and a prime minister who couldn't craft a narrative himself was a recipe for disaster as we saw.

13:55Burnham doesn't have that to anything like the same extent but he is bound by the fact that his opponents will see him as being another Labour tax and spend prime minister. The difference is compared to any time in my political lifetime or periods that I study or research is we have multi-party politics in Britain for the first time. In the past the Labour and Conservative parties, but simply, if they lost office, would just wait until they were re-elected. It used to be called the pendulum effect. They'd go from one to the other reasonably regularly, and you'd wait. It could be 18 years in the case of Tony Blair coming to power.

14:27It could be 13 years for Keir Starmer, but it would come around. There has been, in the last few years, and since Brexit and since the crash, which really define our politics, the crash fundamentally, Brexit following on from that and today, this multi-party politics in which any number of permutations could be seen in the next general election. we had a major poll published last week which shows Labour is the largest single party. But where there were three or four different parties all quite close to each other, and in our system, which is partly why he was stressing to change the system, as a manifesto commitment in the next general election, which is a remarkable thing, he's always supported, as it's called, fair voting, portion representation, this will be a manifesto commitment for the Labour Party.

15:07There's now the chance of him, indeed, the necessity for him to re-coalesce, less to rebuild the coalition on the left which saw Labour win power and it's not enough in the past you need 40 % around 40 % class to win majority and that's the case now you do it with much less 70 seats are in play reform on the right the Green Party on the left are fracturing our politics and what Burnham has done so far is he has limited the appeal of the Greens on his left who are doing less well he appeals to them with policies over uh israel and palestine for example but also he won his constituency makerfield in greater manchester about 20 miles away from where i'm sitting a very reformed uk facing seat a very lead seat in brexit terms very socially conservative and yet as a very prominently uh remain or rejoin person he's hedging a bit but he would like to rejoin the european union he won a massive majority partly because he was who he was rather than his parties.

16:09So that's why I think he has a much better chance of being the answer, as it were, to Labour's concerns now, in the case, even five years ago. I remember when you and I were talking when Keir Starmer's leadership was on the rocks, he said, he came out swinging, and he said, the real fight here isn't amongst Labour, it's against reform. And Annie Burnham, in that speech, he didn't mention Nigel Farage, he did not mention reform, he didn't mention the Conservative Party, he didn't mention the Green Party. Do you think that was the right move? Because once again, it does harken back, at least to me as an American, 2008 Obama, when he talked about this message of unity and Annie Burnham had a very similar message of unity saying, hey, even if you don't agree with me, I'm laying out my vision for the future and I want to end the drift and the divide and bring this country together.

17:01Yes, I think you're right. I thought he was, from the outset, in Prime Minister's question time, it was striking. I used this phrase once in an article which was struck by the editor, that Nigel Farage was living rent-free in Keir Starmer's head because of the frequency with which Starmer referred to him. And Starmer, as a person of the centre-left, as a moderate, as a city person, would regard reform as being the antithesis of much of what he stands for in politics, as he regards reform, what reform represents, the threat the reform poses and I have to stress this hasn't happened before in our politics there's never been a party to the right of the Conservative Party appealing on similar issues on a similar level of electoral viability the Conservatives have just nudged ahead in the last week or so but for the last few years they've been level and that's never happened before and a bit like a bit like Burnham I mean the the next best communicator in British politics was Nigel Farage and without Farage, this is my contention, there would have been no Brexit, without Farage reform would not be the phenomenon that it is and were Farage to resign tomorrow, their appeal would collapse, they would disintegrate.

18:10So the individual masses enormously to that extent and Bernou I think recognises that but by not mentioning him, I think he's very smart, by ignoring him, by overlooking, he has the benefit of the fact that reform have been receding as a political force in the last year or so. Many events have happened involving funding, involving a broad appeal, involving the prospectus of the Conservative Party. Kemi Badenok has proven to be an effective leader of the Conservatives. Their ratings have risen. Her ratings are quite high. I mean, they're all negative to politicians. They're all in the negative, but they're relatively, they're less bad than other politicians.

18:44So that's helped him. It means he has, in a sense, a weaker reform party. There's no reason to pick them up or to refer to them as they do. and his view, and you're right to mention Obama, although it's worth mentioning, Obama was much more popular outside the US than he was inside the US and his legacy, of course, is contested as well. But to be able to offer hope as a notion, to be able to offer positivity as a notion, isn't sufficient, but it is necessary for voters to feel something about entrusting their vote, entrusting the country in this individual rather than the pessimism, frankly, that was coming from Keir Starmer.

19:20Now, we can't overstate this. this is a conference, these are Labour Party members, they support the party, support the Prime Minister, they cheered Keir Starmer last year. But I have to tell you, the mood is totally different from last year. In the bars, in the fringe meetings I've been going to, I watched the speech in a speech party, that's what happens to the conference, you have speech parties, then you have post-speech parties where you discuss the speech, and there were spontaneous applause in the meeting, which I never heard last year or the year before. So he did what he had to do in a really emphatic manner.

19:48He's pleased the conference but i think and i'm reading the papers now and it's clear that the conservative papers are critical of him they said particularly over pensions it's a very bold because there's a political joke in britain to say something is a courageous decision for politicians i either lose votes if they do this very courageous decision but this has to be done in to some extent most people know that pensions need to be dealt with that care has to be dealt with his risk has a big risk here he's essentially saying that your pension will still increase but not by as much as it currently is which is unaffordable but that because we're going to improve social care that side of of older age living will be dealt with much better than it has been it's a subtle message but it's a positive message in that sense and what he's done is established it as a major policy issue now for the next general election and i should say in passing When we arrived here, one of the big questions was an early general election.

20:46That could still happen, but the debate has receded enormously because that speech, I think, has set the agenda for the next few years rather than from an election happening very soon. I could forget those words, but that's my feeling. Hope is a powerful message, right, especially in politics. But I am curious how much runway the British people and his party are going to give him because you and I have talked before, and it seems like the people of UK, they give their politicians a shorter amount of time before they are dissatisfied with the person in American politics because the president is in office for four years, pretty much no matter what, unless they die or are impeached.

21:29They give them longer leeway. How long will it be until hope runs out and people want to see results? Well, I think it's just a key question. You used the word runway. it's a very good word. Patience is shorter, attention spans are shorter. The sense that voters have, I mean this strikes me as being the biggest single challenge for a politician in 2026 in UK and the US, is how to deal with voter expectations. For voters cynicism, rather than skepticism, cynicism over politicians and their motives. And you know Obama was limited by his terms. Ronald Reagan in 84 morning in America, a positive message again had term limits but even I'm sure Reagan would have been re-elected in 1988 had he was able to stand.

22:11They do have a shelf life naturally. These messages naturally sent to Park with Churchill in 1945. He was a national saint, but he turned out of office and Labour was elected on the promise of change. So there can be a shelf life, but it's shorter than usual. It requires a politician to be able to deal with the fact that attention spans are short and that the public is suspicious of politicians. That's why I think, and I may be wrong about this, And it may be that his personality starts to grate after a while, as Boris Johnson's did. Boris Johnson was another person who transcended party lines.

22:462019 general election, an almost majority for the Conservatives. Under Boris Johnson, the Red Wall seats in the north of England, never voted Conservative before, voted Conservative over Brexit. And over this scene-shifting politician in the former Boris Johnson, the wheels fell off that administration very rapidly because of his own personal conduct, his own peccadillos. um burnham will know that they're not the same but they have that ability to communicate the relatability is a word often used and it's true that's your barbecue point having a having a beer with this guy it's it's very easy to imagine doing that um and i was struck i was one of the events where he came and uh he spoke on um sunday evening and i was chatting to one of the party delegates who was there and he said uh big lad he said that we've been asked all the big lads have been asked to stand around him when he goes anywhere because he just gets mobbed by people and because his inclination is to stand and chat with them you end up being three hours late for any meeting and the selfies take forever i saw starman do the same thing last year he would have selfies and so on uh and he was friendly and polite but clearly wasn't he said to one of his um advisors when he became leader for the first time he was one of the bars in the house of commons to meet mps for an hour and he said to the advisor afterwards never let me do that again it just wasn't his thing, and yet a politician needs to be able to do that.

24:01Clinton had this, I keep thinking of Clinton. You can't teach that level of emotional engagement. I mean the lip-biting sincerity grated with some people, but he was electorally devastatingly effective, although in governing terms limited in ways that we know, which I don't think will apply to Andy Burnham. So that is something that can't be taught, and that's why, despite having 400 MPs in the House of Commons, they'll be part of an outside for a new leader. My last question to you is, I know it's easy to get applause, like you said, right? Keir Starmer got plenty last year, despite the really grim atmosphere.

24:37It's easy to get applause at your own party's conference. But now what? What happens when the rubber meets the road here? What are you looking out for next in terms of Andy Burnham's leadership? The budget. The budget is the annual financial address by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who's been everywhere, conference as well. and that will be the proof of the pudding, if you like, the rubber on the road. We're not expecting it to be a dramatic budget, which hopefully has and one of the comparisons we've had at this conference has been Labour's last, well, the last effective Labour prime minister was Tony Blair, who again was a supremely effective communicator who came to office with, I think, frankly, a much stronger cabinet in terms of calibre and a rising economy, rising economic growth, the great moderation that we all experienced and enjoyed until the crash of 2008.

25:24So a much more propitious set of circumstances to inherit for the last Labour government than for Starmer. Starmer had a terrible inheritance for all sorts of reasons. Burnham has the same inheritance, the same challenges, the same risk to borrowing costs, the same winter approaching with rising energy costs. This will require more than charisma, more than charm to be able to negotiate. And that's why I think the budget will be the moment when we see, and his choice of Chancellor in John Healy wasn't a bold choice. It was a safe choice, a sensible, but he realizes that the Chancellor has the ability to add to the UK's borrowing costs.

26:00With one remark, the Liz Trust's mini budget is mentioned almost hourly as an example of how not to govern or run a country. So that will be the test. And we will see going into the winter how he fares. And do feel free to ask me this time next year at the 2027 Party Conference, how the mood is then? I definitely will. I know why I said that was my last question, but you brought up Chancellor John Haley. And I do just want to ask because in his speech, he talked a lot about hope again, too. But I was listening to some commentary and someone described it as light on policy. He talked about the debt in the UK being tremendous.

26:35He talked about how labor doesn't have the money that it did back in the 90s, that it's not progressive to add a bigger and bigger benefits bill. When you're listening to that you know the budget is on the horizon. I'm curious, did that indicate to you that how are they going to pay for things? Is there going to be a rise on taxes? What did you, read the tea leaves there for us. He's very concerned with not doing what his predecessor, Rachel Reeves did as chancellor, which was to allow details to be floated, kites to be flown, straws in the wind for weeks before the budget, which was very distracting.

27:11And so it's been quite tight. It's interesting, it's notable how tight the number 10 unit is, how tight the number 11 down the street where the Chancellor is. They don't leak very much. There isn't much money. There may be tax increases in minor areas, but not in the areas which would really be significant in terms of raising revenue. This was, I think, the cardinal error of the Starmer government, alongside the fact that the Prime Minister himself was not a compelling figure, was the way they boxed themselves in over being able to raise revenue. And that's partly based on Labour's history or as it's deemed to be by its critics as a party of tax and spend.

27:47So we had the new Labour, the new Democrats, which were not that way inclined, but because they were inheriting rising economic growth and wage increases, wage inflation. That isn't the case at the moment. And so underplaying expectations will be a key thing for him. The other challenge he has, of course, is he's a former defence secretary who resigned over defence spending and now has the means to affect the increase in spending that he demanded a year ago. So that would be a very easy measure to hold him against. He does not deliver on the commitment to have 3 % of GDP spent on defence by the end of his parliament and 3.5 % by 2035.

28:27Dr. Martin-Farr, thank you so much for joining me, giving us an insight into what the Labour Party conference was like. Thank you so much. I'm already looking forward to our next conversation. My pleasure. Thank you.

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