To think Andy Burnham needs to start to show us he can talk about more than "the north" and "buses"

[joeymaynardssandwiches]

I want to get behind Andy Burnham, I feel he's got the potential to be a great counterpoint to the rise of reform. And I do know it's "silly season" in politics and with parliament closed I guess there's a limit on what initiatives can be announced

But so far it feels like he hasn't broken away from being a northern caricature who just bangs on about buses.

I'm a "northerner" (who always thought of Manchester as the part of Midlands ) but I can only do my job in the south and I can assure Andy there are big pockets of deprivation in the south too.

And I am all for public transport, and investment in it. But it just feels like a real "low hanging fruit" approach for his first few weeks and I want to hear him talk about thornier and less uncontroversial issues.

And admittedly I haven't been reading every news story in depth as I have been busy with the kids so he may have discussed other things. But that is my overriding impression at the moment and it feels a bit frustrating

You’re completely entitled to that opinion. But until I see a Southern politician with an R.P accent accused of “hamming up” their relationship to the place they’re from, I won’t be persuaded it’s anything other than an attempt to keep Northerners from working class backgrounds in their place.

We’re all products of the society we live in. We haven’t had a Prime Minister with a Northern accent since the 70s and I think that undoubtedly influences how people perceive Andy Burnham.

But to be fair, though, I don’t think knowing who your audience are and how to appeal to them in order to become the most popular leader in the country is necessarily a bad thing for a politician, so it probably doesn’t grind Andy Burnham’s gears as much as it does mine.

The big question now is if he’s able to leverage that popularity for the good of the country, and I guess that’s the bit we’ll have to wait and see about, but I for one am willing him to succeed.

I would generally be very pleased to see a non-public schoolboy as PM after so many years, as you say it's been a long time. Is that in itself enough though? I say not.

The audience I referred to by the way is the middle class socialists who have now infiltrated the party and lap this stuff up wholesale. Genuine working class people have been abandoned by Labour and thus turned their backs on them for the most part. They are not going to be impressed by the 'I'm a normal bloke me' routine. He actually isn't a typical example of working class struggle in my view anyway and even if he were he needs to get his hands dirty with the policies that matter to this large cohort of the electorate to have a chance of success. Arseing around on Tik Tok or whatever isn't going to cut it!

But he is a northerner and he is from working class. Yes he is not a struggling working class man. And does not pretend to be one.
He has been successful or he wouldn’t be a PM or a mayor.
How many struggling working class men/women have ever moved from a factory/ a trade/a mine to be a leader of a country? I can only think of Lech Walesa, but those were different times and he was a national hero.
I will still take Burnham over the Eton/ other private school boys we have had recently.

I don’t have TikTok so have not seen his videos before, but have just looked and there is one video of him playing the guitar with Ukrainian soldiers. Is that the arseing around? In the other clips he seems to be talking about the things he has done so far or he is planning to do.
Keir Starmer and Labour in general have been criticised for not trying to be present in the media, even on this thread. So this must be a good thing.
I personally can’t stand TikTok but Conservatives use it too and I am sure other parties/ politicians do as well. So it seems popular among politicians.

He went to Cambridge, grew up in an affluent Cheshire village. Very working class.

I wouldn't say Culcheth is super posh. It's very very normal and boring. It isn't like the bits of Cheshire that the Cheshire (footballers) Wives frequent. His dad was a telephone engineer and his mum was a gp receptionist. It's not like his dad was a nineteenth century chimney sweep and his mum a crack addict. But I would class Telephone Engineer and GP Receptionist as regular, respectable working class jobs. That he them went to a good university doesn't mean he didn't come from a WC background unless the implication is working class people can't get into university.

That's nothing to do with his politics. But trying to suggest his background is suspect because he grew up in Cheshire (like only footballers live there) or got into a good University is grasping at straws a bit.

Ikr all this selling in of a man below. We could have a female PM, that’d be good. It wouldn’t be Labour though as they only do males as leaders.

I think our Prime Minister should stop sowing division between North and South. We are one country. He can talk about levelling up in a way that doesn't need to pit one against the other.

Well, the last female PM was sooo good for the country, wasn’t she?
I’d rather have a man than a repetition of that. I don’t think the country has recovered from those amazing six weeks.

This is how I feel. I've lived in both areas. There are struggling people everywhere.
The south has it's fair share of grinding poverty and then if you are on a medium income in the south there's no money left for quality of life after housing costs and that is grinding and demoralising in its own way.

I’m sure you would. Labour only have male leaders.

As an electorate we have decided to vote in people based on sound bites rather than policy for a while now. When is office, people need instant results and someone who 'relates to the people' despite the huge division in the electorate caused by the shitshow that was the Brexit referendum. As someone who grew-up in the Home Counties but has now lived in a Northern city for over half my life things really need to change.

The city I live in has 3 universities (5 really if you include the Music and Art schools which are separate and world renowned). It has been the biggest financial and legal hub outside London for many years. The city is thriving but central government funding for many years has been cut by 10s of million each year. There has been no investment in central infrastructure, in comparison to all the money poured into the South East. We are the biggest city in Europe without a proper transport infrastructure, it has been coming since I bought my first house here in 2001.

So people may be fed up about hearing about 'the north' but this is long over due. The train between Leeds and Manchester has is a bus on wheels, and let's not forget the amazing and vibrant cities of Hull, Liverpool and Newcastle which would take half a day to get to. These cities are not just places for young people from the South to come and have fun at uni, they are an important part of the economy and places people want to live

I'm not sure what investment you (and Andy B) think has been tipped into the south east but I can only assume you (and Andy B) know very little about large swathes of the SE

There has been fuck all investment in infrastructure round here. Our bus services are being decimated. Even when new housing goes up it goes up in places with no bus routes. There is a risible and infrequent train service. And this is in very built up urban/suburban area. My kids have barely caught a train or a bus as it is so impractical and they are so infrequent and unreliable. So most people round here just laughed bitterly when AB announced the cheap /free bus fare initiatives.

This is why it is frustrating and alienating to hear the south talked about like it is some haven of prosperity and shiny infrastructure

It’s just the usual ‘he’s one of us’ nonsense when he clearly isn’t. Catholic secondary which people move house to try and get into nowadays as standard state secondaries are so woeful. A secure and safe upbringing where his parents prioritised education, hence he developed the aptitude to get into a world class university. It’s hardly toiling down the coal mines is it 🙄

White, male leaders.

How many British people are tolling down the coal mines in this day and age? Even places that still have coal mines tend to employ skilled technicians who operate heavy machinery, it isn't dug out by hand anymore. It's actually quite well paid.

I just think his background is very ordinary and boring by most standards. If you are painting sons of telephone engineers as leading lives of incredible aristocratic privilege then presumably everyone with "better" (pay, status) jobs are on a par with the French aristocracy during the days of the Sun King. I am sure you can live comfortably on the salary for sure. But if it's as fantastic as you say then most of the UK must be fantastically wealthy by that metric. Hooray.

Do you seriously believe that Truss was better than any of male leaders?

Also working class doesn't equal broken home. Lots of working class parents work hard, prioritise their children's education and encourage them to work hard. Some go on to do well like Burnham. The stereotype of all working class people being feckless scroungers is something the right wing press invented and are now using to accuse actual working class people of not meeting. Damn cheeky.

Is Truss your excuse for never having a female leader?

That’s handy. Men don’t get judged because of one person. Now all women are out and Labour must only have males.

Yep the non North London is the diverse part.

I don't understand? North London is massively diverse. What are you trying to say?

I see so which Labour leader are you thinking of that fits the diversity from there?

I wasn't talking about Labour leaders. You seemed to be suggesting North London wasn't diverse. Which puzzled me. I completely agree that Labour leaders have lacked diversity and that this is an issue.

Not at all. I do not believe that being specific sex makes someone a good PM/President.
I am not American but even looking from afar I am certain that Harris would have been better than Trump (who wouldn’t?)

New Zealand Jacinda Arden was very good.

I respected Theresa May as I lived in her constituency and saw what she did for the locals. However, she had no chance to succeed as a PM. The coward Johnson fucked off as soon as the referendum was over instead of taking responsibility for his actions. The Brexiters put the Remainer May in charge of the mess they created. I still follow her on Instagram and admire the work she is doing now, especially her commitment to ending modern slavery and human trafficking.

Kemi Badenoch. Thanks but no thanks. Being a woman doesn’t make her a good candidate for a PM.

I was responding to the pp re Labour leaders. The context is there. Generally they’ve gone for North London only, the pretence at diversity is Burnham’s accent.

He’s still male and pale.

It’s ok it’s already obvious you’ll put down Kemi Badenoch in each post.

In your other post Truss was an excuse for Labour not electing female leaders, but it doesn’t wash.