Andy Burnham will become Britain’s latest prime minister today, inheriting a problem that his predecessors failed to address. Productivity growth in the UK collapsed directly after the global financial crisis in 2008 and never recovered.
Burnham’s victory in the Makerfield by-election cleared his path to No. 10, but he arrives with the Strait of Hormuz closed again, intensifying pressure to change the government’s policy on North Sea oil and gas drilling. The argument is often framed as a choice between cutting emissions and cutting energy bills, but research shows that drilling at Rosebank and Jackdaw will fail as a long-term strategy.
“Andy Burnham becomes PM amid pressure to change North Sea drilling policy, with research showing Rosebank and Jackdaw will fail as long-term strategy.”
The new PM has expressed a lot of ideas about British society and has policies, but an overarching strategic objective beyond “the usual platitudes of social justice” is hard to identify. Bill Clinton, by contrast, assembled a group of experts shortly after his 1992 election to draft a programme that reformed welfare and the health system while eliminating the fiscal deficit. Burnham did not have a lot of time to prepare — the gap between his by-election victory and arrival at Downing Street is comparable to the US transition period, but Clinton set goals and intermediate targets, and developed a clear idea of the political and real-world obstacles.
Burnham’s economic strategy remains unclear. The City of London, once the gift that kept on giving, and Germany’s car industry both boomed before 2008, but the UK’s productivity never recovered. With oil and gas drilling at Rosebank and Jackdaw now under scrutiny, the incoming PM must decide whether to chase short-term energy relief or face the climate costs — a choice that may define his premiership.