What I mean by a professional northerner is someone who courts popularity by engaging in identity politics, specifically posing as a representative of people of the north portrayed as victims of the posh privileged people down south. If he ever becomes prime minister with responsibility for the whole country, he will no longer be able to play that card.
The reason I predict failure and inevitable betrayal of his election promises is that, in his latest incarnation as the apostle of the soft left, his political programme is one of the redistribution of wealth through state intervention rather than growth through incentives for private enterprise. This is exactly the sort of stuff Keir Starmer used to advocate before he won the leadership, which economic reality forced him to ditch, just as Burnham will ditch it once he has the keys to Number Ten. But the backbenchers won't allow him to carry out the policies needed to rejuvenate the economy, in particular to reduce welfare spending and cut taxes. So a Burnham administration will more or less follow the path set by Starmer, one of economic stagnation characterised by high taxes. |