I am a Labour member, and if it comes to it, I shall vote for Starmer.
Not because I have mistaken him for Clement Attlee with better glasses. Not because I think everything is wonderful. Not because cautious government makes me leap out of bed in the morning humming The Red Flag. It doesn’t, which is probably just as well for the furniture.
I shall vote for him because I think the direction of travel is broadly right, and changing leader only makes sense if the new leader has a better route, not just a better voice for reading the satnav.
Andy Burnham has done well. He won Makerfield, and not by a squeak. He beat the polls, beat Reform, and won by enough to make the result matter. That gives him standing, and it gives Labour something to think about.
But it doesn’t follow that he should replace a sitting Labour Prime Minister.
The polls suggested a much tighter contest. Burnham’s win showed he was a stronger candidate than expected, and that voters were willing to gather behind him once Reform looked like the main challenger. Fair enough. That’s useful evidence. It isn’t a national theory of government.
Makerfield was a by-election, not a general election. The smaller parties were squeezed almost flat, Reform was split to its right, and Burnham could campaign as something Starmer can’t be: a Labour figure with governing experience who isn’t currently Prime Minister. That’s a very attractive role. It’s also a temporary one.
The question is not whether Burnham is warmer than Starmer, or more fluent, or better at sounding as if he’s just been talking to a man outside a bus depot. He probably is. The question is what he would actually do that changes the pace of delivery before the general election.
He has some different levers. Public ownership of water and parts of energy. A tougher line on Thames Water. Rent controls. Bus fares. More devolution. Tax tweaks. A stern look in the direction of the Treasury, which frankly has deserved one for most of my adult life.
Some of that may be worthwhile. But none of it abolishes the basic constraints. Public ownership still has to be paid for, legislated for, administered and defended in the courts. Rent freezes don’t build houses. Moving green levies from electricity bills to taxation doesn’t make the cost disappear. Devolution can improve decisions, but it doesn’t conjure money, labour, planners, engineers or time out of the municipal biscuit tin.
The public finances wouldn’t suddenly become generous because Andy Burnham walked through the black door. Public services wouldn’t repair themselves out of regional pride. Brexit wouldn’t stop dragging on growth because the Prime Minister had northern vowels. The Treasury would still exist, which is always a pity.
So if the constraints remain broadly the same, and the extra levers are slow, costly or uncertain, what are we changing in time for the election?
A personality. A mood. A presentation. Possibly a lectern.
There might be a short burst of excitement inside Labour. Some members would declare that Labour had found its soul again, which always seems to happen shortly before someone starts arguing about reselection. Westminster would enjoy a week of froth about resets, relaunches and new chapters.
But the right-wing press would not suddenly become fair-minded. If Burnham pulled off an economic miracle, the Mail would find a pensioner whose miracle had arrived five minutes late, the Telegraph would call it Marxism with bus lanes, and the Sun would discover a war hero whose bins had not been collected.
That is the risk. The risk isn’t that Burnham is useless. He plainly isn’t. Nor is it that Starmer should be immune from criticism, because that would be ridiculous. The risk is that Labour sells a change of leader as a change of possibilities, and then discovers that the possibilities are still hemmed in by budgets, law, planning, capacity, inflation, courts, contracts and the general bloody-mindedness of the real world.
We have just watched the Conservative Party treat leadership changes as a substitute for governing. Johnson would fix it. Then Truss would fix it. Then Sunak would fix it again. By the end, the country had noticed that the problem was not just the person at the podium, but the politics, the choices and the condition of the state.
Labour should not catch that disease just because it has found a more personable patient.
Starmer has the mandate, the majority and, awkwardly enough, the job. He has started the work. It may be slower than people want and less dramatic than activists enjoy, but the test is not whether it feels thrilling. The test is whether it is moving the country in the right direction.
I think it is.
So yes, I shall vote for Starmer. Not as an act of devotion, and not because I think he is flawless. I shall vote for him because replacing him now looks less like strategy and more like impatience in a different jacket.
Burnham may have a future. He may have a role. He may even sharpen Labour from inside Parliament, which would be useful. But unless he can show that his extra levers would deliver materially faster improvement before the general election, changing leader now risks confusing motion with progress.
And after the last lot, watching Labour play Westminster musical chairs would be quite an achievement. The country needs repairs, not another man measuring up the curtains.
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