On Being Burnham

It’s an odd thing to do, but I’ve been wondering what it is like being Andrew Murray Burnham. Not really possible of course, but there are some obvious aspects which would apply to almost any prominent political figure.

For example we have personality, intelligence, upbringing, education, career and so on, all the usual factors which make us what we are. We have a deep personal experience of these. Anyone on the political stage is also subject to personal constraints and influences which we understand but most of us don’t experience directly, but in different contexts we get to know it via working life.

Apart from family and friends, we know that Burnham will have been moulded by the Labour Party, its history, structure and baggage, plus political colleagues and their aspirations. Then there are charlatan colleagues who won’t be colleagues if things go wrong or other opportunities beckon. Add in media contacts ranging from barely trustworthy to wholly untrustworthy. Then we have advisors, pressure groups, a range of officials plus a fringe of shouty obsessives who wave placards in public places.

A list of political constraints and influences would be enormous, but where is the space for an individual with an individual personality? The only available spaces are away from the political theatre, but they will still include a few political cronies who never quite leave the theatre.

What does the ambitious political actor have to offer apart from a willingness to play a role, and preferably a major one? In the case of Burnham, this seems nothing but his ambition and his fortuitous situation as a known and very ambitious Westminster outsider promoting himself with the chummy diminutive ‘Andy’.

Voters need more than personal ambition from political leaders, but so far Burnham seems to be offering nothing else. “I want to be Prime Minister” seems to be it.