Catch-up service:
Podcast: Dan Williams - Is AI Really Going To Kill Us All?
Why Is the Left So Bad at Education?
Why Does Every Society Invent the Same Things?
Seven Rules of Good Conversation
Why I Won’t Reply To Your AI-Generated Email
Why Introverts Make the Best Extroverts
Politics Is Making Academia StupidPart II of my excellent conversation with Dan Williams about AI will arrive tomorrow, for paid subscribers only.
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On Tuesday Andy Burnham gave his first speech to Labour Party conference as leader and Prime Minister. It was a glorious success. There was a sense of someone who was finally where he always wanted to be and determined to make the most of it. Even among politicians, Burnham is remarkable for the depth and resilience of his ambition. He has long had a sense of himself as destined to lead his party. Hope had to outrun reality at times - it took two failed attempts and a diversion via Manchester. But he made it. I didn’t think he would, and I was wrong. So I may be under-estimating him again when I say it’s likely that we will look back on Tuesday and see it as Andy Burnham’s zenith; his finest hour. I would advise his supporters to put on their seatbelts and prepare for descent.
Before getting into why, I want to pay tribute to what a fine hour it was. If you haven’t watched the speech, you ought to, if only the highlights. There is something unsatisfying about the description “good communicator”, which implies there is some model to which all should aspire. In fact, good communicators come in radically different forms. What we really mean is the ability to transmit ideas and emotions in a way that is unique to the speaker; which amplifies their singular personality. Hence Obama and Trump can both be described as great communicators even though they are antithetical in style. They are not like each other or anyone else, but they are extremely like themselves.
It took him a long time but Burnham has learned how to be himself in public, which is a valuable skill. He is not particularly eloquent. He is not yet a fluent autocue user, and puts stresses on odd words. But it doesn’t matter, because when he speaks we feel like we are seeing who he is. We can see his soul. That would not be a good thing if he were not a likeable person, but he is. You can tell he really likes people - prerequisite of being likeable. You can tell he genuinely cares about his country and that he wants to be a better leader than those it has had in recent years.
This presentational aspect is important, not just to Burnham’s progress. Voters were already poisonously cynical about our political leaders in 2024. In office, Keir Starmer became like a lab-engineered bioweapon aimed at the heart of our democracy. If you believed that politicians don’t care about anything except staying in power then he offered apparent confirmation every week. Worst of all was the sense of nobody there - of being ruled by a bloodless, mysteriously useless automaton. In a vacuum like that, distrust deepens, conspiracy theories thrive and multiply. Burnham will not single-handedly vanquish cynicism, but most voters can at least see that he is a real, emotional, flesh and blood person whom they might know and like. If he fails, it will be in a very human way.
There are two more things that I liked about the speech. First, Burnham told the story he wanted to tell. Rather than the usual tour of the political waterfront, he left a lot out, and kept the dinging of opponents to a minimum. He said little about defence and national security- surprising, in the wake of the Fairford incident - and little about economic growth. He skipped crime and made only brief references to immigration. He is just not very interested in these issues. Now, I think he ought to be interested in them - they are certainly interested in him - but his speech showed us who he is, for better and for worse.
Second, it is good to have a leader who acts as if he can just do things. In attitude, Burnham is the most high-agency leader we’ve had in a while. He announced his intent to launch a national care service, to reform pension provision, to reform the electoral system, and to reassess Britain’s relationship with the EU. He sounded almost recklessly optimistic about his ability to get these big and complex things done. After the pinched caution and passive miserabilism of the Starmer-Reeves regime this was bracing. Prime Ministers with parliamentary majorities have a lot of power, more than most national leaders, but too often they invent their own constraints. The surest way to maximise your power is to act as if you have it.
However. Back in June, before he had taken over, I argued that Burnham would make a poor Prime Minister even though he excels on certain dimensions. Since then I have been open to having my mind changed, but this week made me think I was right.
