Published in The Mail on Sunday on 05 July 2026.
Are you excited about our soon-to-be prime minister? The answer, I suspect, depends on whether you are a member of the Labour Party.
Among his fellow MPs, the elation at Andy Burnham’s return to Westminster was plain to see. After a grim couple of years, it would be churlish to begrudge them a moment of cheer, especially since it might not last long.
To the Left, the Starmer-Burnham handover feels like a great reset – a circuit breaker, a new direction and a chance to do things differently, as the King of the North himself put it last week. Everyone else will believe the change when they see it.
That’s not to say they don’t see potential. In my latest survey, Burnham has an eight-point lead over Kemi Badenoch in the best PM stakes, where last month Starmer trailed by a point.
Burnham also does better than Starmer when Nigel Farage is included in the question. The new Makerfield MP commands the same favourability score as Badenoch, but with fewer negatives (but also, more saying they feel neutral towards him – for now, at least). He has supplanted Farage in voters’ predictions as the most likely PM after the next election.
We work full-time, we’ve got two kids. Starmer doesn’t care about us
Burnham is widely regarded as being more Left-wing than Keir Starmer, gladdening the hearts of those who yearn for what they call a ‘proper’ Labour government.
Polls published since Starmer’s resignation have shown a small boost to Labour’s standing, largely at the expense of other parties on the Left. I found potential Green voters twice as likely to have a positive view of Burnham as they were of the incumbent (easy to forget, but he’s still there). The changes are slight and may prove temporary, but with five or even six parties in the race, small shifts in support can have an outsize electoral impact.
Those familiar with Burnham believe he will do the job differently, be more decisive and better at explaining what he’s up to.
I can see him not lying to me
Some also expect a more honest approach. ‘I can see him not lying to me,’ said a previous Labour voter in Nottinghamshire. ‘Just laying it on the table and saying, ‘Look, this is what it is.’ I wouldn’t see that from Starmer.’
But many more know little or nothing about him. ‘I thought, ‘Who is this person?’ said a woman reflecting on the news of Burnham’s likely accession. Many feel detached from the spectacle of a group of politicians yet again arranging a new leader for the country without its say-so.
Nor do they have any real idea what to expect. Some who had picked up on Burnham’s plans for a new No 10 North detected what one described as ‘a little bit of Trump energy’ in his apparent willingness to shake things up. But it remains to be seen how his scheme to rewire the state will improve people’s lives.
If they don’t, successive leaders will look, in the words of a voter in Plymouth (if refined MoS readers will forgive me), ‘like two cheeks of the same a***’.
Some on the Left hail Burnham’s gifts as a communicator. They want a better articulation of the case for even more spending and borrowing. Others would rather see a leader who offers a credible way out of the fiscal doom loop of higher taxes and economic stagnation and is prepared to make tough decisions to make it possible.
As far as many are concerned, Starmer didn’t fail just because he wasn’t good at being prime minister. His government, they say, was going in the wrong direction – on tax, debt, policing, North Sea oil, net zero or (especially) welfare.
‘He was looking after the wrong people,’ another woman said of Starmer. ‘We work full-time, we’ve got two kids. Starmer doesn’t care about us. He just wants to take from us and give to Sue down the road who’s literally never worked and claims every benefit going.’ Whose side will Burnham be on? The working family, or Sue down the road?
This is Burnham’s first conundrum. He needs to win back the voters who despair at all this, but will have to get any reforms past his new friends in Parliament – the ones who blocked welfare reform, are uncomfortable with Shabana Mahmood’s plans to tighten the asylum system and created the situation that prompted Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden to complain: ‘Every meeting I have is: who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others?’
Burnham’s second conundrum is how far to depart from the 2024 Labour manifesto. If change is on the way, how much of it has the country’s consent? I found most voters want an election within a year, if not immediately, though few expect to get one. But if he enjoys any kind of honeymoon, he might wonder if he is looking at his one chance of winning another term, especially if Reform struggle to regain momentum.
If the Left bloc is consolidating, the Right looks to be fragmenting further. I found more than one in ten voters tempted by Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain. At the same time, the temptation for Farage to try to keep them on board by taking Reform further to the Right could open up space for Badenoch and the Conservatives.
Meanwhile, the new PM’s success will not depend on whether the Labour Party looks different. It will depend, as always, on the voters and their quality of life.
See the full data tables on LordAshcroftPolls.com
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