There have been 10 previous midterm transitions of prime minister in the UK since the Second World War. Five went on to win the following general election; four went on to lose, while one, Liz Truss, only survived for 49 days. So don’t believe anyone claiming that there is a preordained outcome to this transition from Keir Starmer to Andy Burnham. Everything is still to play for.
One definite non-factor is the degree of failure or unpopularity of the exiting prime minister. Anthony Eden’s position completely collapsed after his failure in the Suez crisis of 1956, but Harold Macmillan went on to win a landslide in the general election three years later. Margaret Thatcher was forced out in the depths of unpopularity over her poll tax in 1990, but John Major went on to win the 1992 election decisively. Theresa May’s standing was rock bottom amid the Brexit impasse of 2019, but Boris Johnson won a landslide only five months later.
Insofar as I can detect a trend, it is that new prime ministers—apart from the uniquely disastrous Truss—tend to do better than generally predicted when they first enter the role. And not only those who go on to win an election. Of the four who were defeated, Alec Douglas-Home lost by only a whisker to Harold Wilson in 1964. According to the polls, James Callaghan might have won against a “marmite” Thatcher (in terms of her popular appeal) had he called an election when expected in late 1978, rather than waiting until 1979 after the disastrous “winter of discontent”.
Gordon Brown, similarly, might have won a snap election after taking over from Tony Blair in 2007, rather than waiting until 2010. Even then, David Cameron failed to win a majority and was forced into a coalition with the Lib Dems. And Rishi Sunak, who lost by a landslide to Starmer two years ago, nonetheless salvaged 121 seats and clear second place for the Tories, which was better than had been predicted by the polls. He also largely held off Farage and Reform UK, which in retrospect was a greater achievement than it seemed at the time.
It is fairly clear why new prime ministers tend to exceed expectations. They aren’t responsible (or at any rate, largely responsible) for past failures, and they bring new energy to the job. This was true even in 2007, during the transition from Blair to Brown, which I witnessed first-hand. Blair and his governing competence and campaigning prowess were so formidable that I believe he might ultimately have defeated Cameron had Labour MPs allowed him to continue through to 2010. But Brown got an initial popularity bounce when he took over, largely (I think) because Labour MPs stopped arguing bitterly among themselves about Iraq, and as a new PM he had a chance to cut and run to an immediate election (though he didn’t take it).
In the case of the transition from Starmer to Burnham, there isn’t a single, focused point of failure or unpopularity akin to Suez, the poll tax, Iraq or the negotiations for Brexit. Rather, there is a deep, pervasive sense that the country is broken and rudderless. The closest parallel is Wilson to Callaghan in 1976, when the state of the country was also dire in the wake of a miners’ strike, a fuel crisis and rampant inflation. But unlike Starmer, Wilson appeared, until his sudden resignation, to be getting on top of the inflation crisis and was not particularly unpopular. Significantly, the incoming Callaghan did not change the chancellor, the ebullient and resilient Denis Healey, and doubled down on his inherited policy of pay restraint to curb inflation.
Burnham, by contrast, looks set to change chancellors, but in favour of policy unknown. The universal cry is “growth”, but growth is not a policy; it is an objective. And a whole set of rival policies to promote growth are supported by different Labour politicians and people like Jim O’Neill, who is being touted as one of Burnham’s advisers. Some favour welfare cuts so that anti-growth income taxes do not need to rise even further to pay for increased defence and health spending. However, most of Burnham’s parliamentary supporters are opposed to welfare cuts, and to balance the books they deflect either to an (undefined) wealth tax and/or more borrowing. The latter (proposed by O’Neill this week) would require completely rewriting the fiscal rules which last week Burnham said he would abide by. Or does he mean he would stick to fiscal rules once he has rewritten them? I suspect he doesn’t know himself at the moment, nor does he likely have a view on the reaction of the markets if borrowing is sharply increased.
Almost all independent commentators argue that Brexit has been a huge economic disaster and that growth requires a far better trading agreement with the European Union. Burnham has on occasion said he agrees with this. During the Makerfield byelection campaign, however, he said that he won’t do anything much about joining the customs union or single market until the 2029 election.
Equally elastic is the concept of “Manchesterism”, which is both pro-business and pro-public investment. The trouble is, public investment is largely determined by central government, so unless Burnham is going to radically increase public spending, it doesn’t yield a radical change of policy.
Then again there is the issue of nationalisation, which Burnham raises constantly. But that too has a big price tag attached with no accompanying strategy (as yet) to pay for it.
Over the short few weeks until the handover, some clarity is needed. The first requirement is to appoint a chancellor, which will not only bring clarity but force choices. At the moment, Burnham’s team has floated two options: one from the left of the party (Ed Miliband) and one from the right (Wes Streeting). Until this choice of chancellor is resolved, no one will have much idea about the direction of the next government. All we will know for sure is that it will not be led by Keir Starmer.
