Ambition is, generally, a good thing. Anyone who aspires to become an MP has to be motivated and focused on getting elected. I remember Betty Boothroyd, a former Speaker of the House of Commons, suggesting that the desire to become an MP was like the grime underneath a miner’s fingernails: it cannot be scrubbed away.
So it isn’t unusual that ambitious Labour politicians should be plotting and scheming to supplant Sir Keir Starmer. What is surprising is that they should be so blatant about those desires, as the Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham has been, just days before the Labour Party conference.
Of course, I have seen politicians being blatant about their ambitions, over the years. I remember Theresa May appearing on Desert Island Discs in 2014 and then in a favourable article in Vogue, describing her style. It looked like a clear pitch for leadership. It was cringeworthy but nobody could deny the steely ambition behind it. Her rivals weren’t happy.
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By contrast, Boris Johnson was always the master of the non-denial denial of any ambition. He grew up in an upper-class British culture where it wasn’t quite acceptable to be seen to be too ambitious. Accordingly, he became very good at masking his intense ambition, generally in a cloak of bonhomie and good humour.
“There is more chance of me being reincarnated as an olive than becoming prime minister”, was one such expression of his desire not to appear too ambitious.
Burnham has chosen a more direct style. It is more consonant with his character: plain-spoken, unpretentious, down to earth. This is how the “King of the North” should speak.
His interview seems to say: Starmer has no vision, he is too London-centric, if you want a new leader, I’m your man. Burnham also referred to the Labour MPs who he says are “urging” him to stand for leader.
Despite his more direct and sincere approach, Burnham is presenting himself like Boris did for much of the 2010s – as an alternative to their actual current leader.
In Boris’s case he saw himself, as did many others, as the alternative, first to David Cameron and, secondly, to Theresa May. Much as I admired his brio and skills as a campaigner, I cannot deny that Boris’s “king over the water” act was destabilising and demoralising for those MPs who wanted to maintain loyalty to the incumbent leader.
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What has given Burnham’s ambition away has been the timing of this particular intervention. It is no accident that all this speculation has been prompted by an interview, only days before the Labour Party conference in Liverpool. Burnham, for all his studied sincerity, can never convince us that this is a coincidence.
Similarly, it was at a Conservative Party conference that the buzz around a potential Boris Johnson bid for the Tory leadership always reached fever pitch. At the conference itself, people would queue for hours to hear the Messiah himself speak. Boris endeared himself to the party faithful for many years before he won the party leadership decisively in 2019.
I do not know yet what role Andy Burnham will play at this year’s Labour conference, but assume he will play a prominent role. He will be going around, glad-handing activists, drinking pints with party stalwarts, sharing jokes and reminiscences. Andy is good at that.
Funnily enough, I got to know both Starmer and Burnham as a member of Parliament and as a minister. I confess I like them both, on a personal level.
I think Andy is more of a retail politician and will be more comfortable talking to activists in a bar in Liverpool than the prime minister. Yet, the bonhomie and charm may be there, but replacing Starmer with Burnham will not solve Labour’s fundamental lack of direction or purpose.
Kwasi Kwarteng is a former Conservative MP. He served as chancellor between September and October 2022 under Liz Truss
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