Andy Burnham's 'broken' Westminster speech echoes Farage as he takes power

Andy Burnham, the Lancastrian usurper who secured his hold on Westminster through an internal Labour coup, has declared the capital's institutions 'broken' — using language apparently no longer the preserve of Right-wing populists. In his landmark devolution speech, the new leader told the country what many have long felt: that major, even fundamental changes are needed to cast off 'the meanness and frustration of long years of stagnation and decline'. The speech came after years of permanent crisis, with summer ethnic riots now a routine problem of governance and Nigel Farage having evolved into the dominant figure in British political life, around whom, in fear or expectation, all else revolves. Burnham's manifesto-by-proxy, 'The Productive State', aims to flesh out his much-invoked but nebulous Manchesterism as a programme for governance. It unabashedly adopts a 'declinist' framework still mocked as a Right-wing fantasy by backwards-looking elements of the Labour Left. The paper notes that Labour have hitherto not delivered on the public's demand for change, and warns that 'if that feeling does not change, the electoral consequences will be severe'. Yet many of those celebrating Burnham's successful coup were just as feverishly exultant two years ago over the coming Starmerite golden age. As the article from UnHerd concludes, if they were better judges of the country's mood, we would not be here today.