The autumn political season has well and truly begun, with Andy Burnham facing his first parliamentary tests and the Reform UK conference having just happened. I’ll come to Reform’s travails in a moment, but let’s first have a word about Andy Burnham.
No one could accuse the prime minister of ducking questions when he came to Parliament to make a statement on the future direction of the government. He answered 126 questions from MPs over three hours. He certainly deserved his gravy on his chips after that. Having said that, did any of us emerge any the wiser about his policy direction? I don’t think so. There were lots of people/MP pleasing moments, but scant little about actual meaningful policy.
The next day he faced Kemi Badenoch again for PMQs. It’s interesting how divided opinion was about his performance. He didn’t do badly, but frankly the whole thing was quite boring, as evidenced by the lack of cheering from the Labour benches. Having told us he wanted to do politics differently, he did the exact opposite with repeated jibes towards the Conservatives, and particularly the new shadow chancellor, Andrew Griffith. Apparently, as the No 3 minister in the Treasury under Liz Truss, the mini budget was entirely his creation! I mean, who knew?! Kemi Badenoch treated him quite gently on his first outing, which was wise. He shouldn’t count on that happening for too long though.
My prediction that the Conservatives would overtake Reform in the polls by Christmas has come true a few months early. Reform have been having a wretched time, largely due to financial issues or scandals. Their conference was almost wrecked by the Channel Four News expose. Convincing answers were largely absent from the interviews given by their senior spokespeople. I rarely think this sort of issue resonates with voters but coming on top of the £5 million donation issue, it’s difficult to think of any other explanation for the decline in Reform’s polling from 30 per cent to 20-22 per cent.
I expected Reform to announce further members of their so-called Shadow Cabinet during their conference, but they didn’t. It’s ridiculous that they don’t have a Health or Defence spokesperson.
As a spectacle, the Reform conference was unrivalled. Brilliant staging, a huge venue, with more than 8,000 delegates attending. Businesses were well represented. The media were there in full force. It had the potential to be a brilliantly successful event. However, the organisation was shambolic. Ever session started massively late and overran. There were only two security people letting people in the hall. If you can’t organise the logistics of a conference, people could be forgiven for wondering how they could run a government.
Sadly for them, all their policy announcements were overshadowed by the donor scandal and Zia Yusuf’s borderline racist comments about the Somali born leader of Camden Council, who may be the Labour candidate in the Holborn & St Pancras by-election.
The Conservatives start the autumn season in good heart, despite their opinion poll ratings, which are still stuck in the 20-22 per cent range. Still, this time last year it was 16-18 per cent, so it’s progress of sorts. The difference is that Kemi Badenoch’s position is now unassailable and that was demonstrated this week by a fairly brutal reshuffle of her front bench, in which two of the top three positions got new appointees. Mel Stride took his removal as well as he could. Harriet Cross and Rebecca Paul are two new additions to the Shadow Cabinet who, I think, will make quite an impact.
The Greens are in a strange position. Zack Polanski announced he wants to fight the by-election for the Greens, but his selection is by no means cut and dried. If he failed to win the selection, that would be a huge blow for him and weaken his leadership. I believe if he gets the nomination, he could well be the constituency’s next MP.
The week after next, the LibDems meet for their annual conference. It’s a very important one for them, as there are many in their party – and their parliamentary party – who are growing increasingly impatient with their lack of breakthrough. Apart from their views on PR, Brexit and sewerage, voters don’t really know anything more about their national policies. That needs to change if the whispers against Ed Davey’s leadership are not to increase in volume.
There is also increasing chatter about Andy Burnham doing a screeching u-turn and calling an early election in October or November. The logic is that Reform are languishing, the Tories show few signs of a big revival, and the Greens are also seemingly in reverse gear. It will never get better for Burnham than this, so the reasoning goes. Labour MPs would be furious, as many of them would lose their seats, although it’s more than likely Burnham, on current polling, would get a majority, albeit reduced, and with it, a five year mandate. He, of course, was in Gordon Brown’s cabinet, when he faced a similar dilemma in September 2007. And we all know what happened when he wimped out of calling an election after only three months as prime minister. My prediction is that Burnham probably should call an election, but won’t. And by the start of 2027 he may well already live to regret it.