Labour Conference 2025: Starmer Talks Delivery, Burnham Brings the Vibes

If timing is everything, then Andy Burnham has already achieved maximum impact in his soft launch challenge to Sir Keir Starmer for Labour’s leadership. With the Westminster rumour mill already swirling about just how much the upcoming party conference would be the Burnham show, his airwaves assault in recent days has all but solidified it.

It’s hard to keep track of just how many different media outlets the already two-time leadership contender has granted interviews to in the run up to conference. Engaging in some deft double talk, he has laid out his “plan for Britain” and passed the buck to other unnamed MPs he relays as having urged him to thrown down the gauntlet to Starmer. All of this while pledging continued commitment to his mayoral job in Manchester where he insists his head still is. 

As a non-MP, he is of course relinquished of the formal collective responsibility of his Westminster colleagues in stoking these embers so overtly, and it’s notable that he speaks of supporting the Labour Party in whatever way he can, rather than Starmer or the government. His public forays have already drawn on-the-record, thinly-veiled rebukes from Cabinet member Steve Reed, who spoke of Burnham as a ‘regional politician being entitled to make his case’ while looking forward to the mayor serving out his term until 2028.

There is some irony in Reed as a member of Labour’s London pack being the one to venture forth such criticism, and as someone who needs no encouragement to point to both political and economic north-south divides, Burnham may even welcome it. Reed may be particularly irked, given the overshadowing of today’s pre-conference announcement in his ministerial area on devolving powers to communities over high street services, trades and even funding.

Labour in government have moved on from hammering home the concept of its missions, having taken arguably more than sufficient time to outline their policy strategies and are now beset by a focus on showing they can deliver changes that matter to voters. So there will be wider irritation among Starmer’s Cabinet that Andy Burnham is distracting from that message at conference.

So has he gone too hard, too fast, and too early? Arguably not, if considering the timeline to Welsh and Scottish elections next year where Reform are throwing the kitchen sink at its strategy to show they can deliver at different levels of government, first council, then devolved, and eventually at Westminster. The question of whether and when Burnham’s route to an MP’s seat could be a reality could delay his attempt at a triumphant arrival, but he is getting in now to be in pole position should Labour do badly next year.

The reality is, for all that Labour will want to focus on delivering what matters to voters in a visible way, we are in an era of vibe politics. Burnham may be disliked among the current parliamentary party for trying to show Starmer up so overtly, but he presents a vibe that seems more in keeping with  “the common man” in a way that Farage has successfully leveraged. Personalities and figureheads are going to matter at the next General Election, vibes will likely trump the details, and in that, Andy Burnham is counting on his vibe abilities to do what he thinks is needed to save the Labour Party. But Labour isn’t as predisposed to repeated regicide as the Conservatives are, so he may have to arrive at last rather than jumping the gun too soon.