The Labour Party is in the grip of a fever. And fevers, by their nature, burn hot and distort vision. The object of this particular delirium is Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, and the symptoms are everywhere among Labour backbenchers.
They whisper his name with a glint in the eye. They speak of him in terms one observer has described as “almost messianic.” The comparison to Beatlemania at its peak has been invoked.
It is a spectacle, and it is a dangerous one for a party that claims to be the serious alternative for government. What is the basis for this coronation? It rests on a single by-election victory in Makerfield.
Burnham won the seat, yes, and by a considerable amount. It was a seat Labour could have lost.
But the victory came with an asterisk so large it should be a warning sign, not a launching pad. Reform UK handed the seat to Labour on a plate. They fielded a desperately poor candidate, one they had clearly failed to vet.
Burnham did not win because of a groundswell of support for his policy platform or his vision for the country. He won because the opposition made a catastrophic error. That is the foundation upon which the “King in the North” narrative is being built.
It gets worse when you actually look at the man being anointed. Andy Burnham first came to national attention as a young minister.
He was nicknamed Bambi. That is not a nickname for a titan of politics. It is a nickname for a fawn with doe-like brown eyes and soft skin.
He rose relatively quickly, serving as Health Secretary between 2009 and 2010. That period was defined by the department dealing with the consequences of the previous administration’s decisions.
It was not a time of transformative reform or bold leadership. It was a time of management, and not particularly successful management at that. Nobody in the party is asking the hard questions.
Nobody is scrutinising the record. The assumption that Burnham is Labour’s great hope rests on a remarkable lack of examination of his achievements, either during his time in Westminster or as Mayor of Greater Manchester. What are the concrete legislative wins?
What are the measurable outcomes of his tenure in the North West? The questions go unasked.
Instead, the party is treating him as King Arthur emerging from Silbury Hill, the anointed figure ready to save Britain in its darkest hour. It is ludicrous beyond words. But it is real.
It is happening. The forces behind this are clear.
Labour MPs are desperate. They have been out of power for over a decade. They see a Prime Minister in Keir Starmer who is struggling to connect with the public.
They see polls that suggest the next election is winnable, but they lack confidence in the man at the top. So they look for a saviour. They find Burnham, who has a profile, who has a regional power base, and who has the right look.
They ignore the substance. They ignore the asterisk on Makerfield.
They ignore the Bambi years. Where is this likely to lead? If the party continues down this path, it will crown a leader based on a fantasy.
A leader whose record has not been tested, whose weaknesses have not been exposed, and whose primary qualification is that he is not the current leader. That is a recipe for a short, brutal premiership.
The hard questions will come. The scrutiny will arrive. And when it does, the messianic fervour will turn to bitter disappointment.
The Labour Party is not finding a messiah. It is finding a man with a very thin record and a very large asterisk. That is the reality the party is choosing to ignore.
