Andy Burnham became British Prime Minister on July 20, 2026. Parliament had risen for the summer recess, and so he only had his first Prime Minister’s Question Time yesterday. To the political virgins, PMQs look a lot like gladiatorial combat among the members of the Oxford Union. It is one of the few blood sports still legal in Britain. At the same time, the House of Commons is the longest running farce in the West End, and PMQs are the main punchline. Yesterday, Mr. Burnham showed off a good deal of bonhomie and very little else. Eventually, he will have to face serious matters seriously, but yesterday was a brief honeymoon compared to what lies ahead.
The PM faces the House every Wednesday afternoon for 45 minutes, and s/he must answer questions (or appear to answer them) from members of the chamber. These are usually innocuous questions. It is the follow-up that often drives the dagger in. It is often along the lines of “Can the PM detail his activities yesterday?” The follow-up is more along the lines of “In all of that, did the PM find time to address the failure of the government to defend the pound against the hedge funds that have decided to take the currency down?” The first question is published in the order paper for the day. The follow-up is always a surprise.
Mr. Burnham did not run into any buzz-saws in the follow-ups. At the same time, a pattern emerged that his predecessor Sir Keir Starmer would have recognized. As Peter Walker wrote in the Guardian:
. . . by Badenoch’s third question, Burnham was blaming the economic legacy of previous Conservative governments. By the fourth, he was bringing up Liz Truss’s mini-budget, a near-weekly feature of Keir Starmer’s PMQs repertoire.
In fairness, the latter was something of a political open goal given Badenoch’s decision to, in a weekend reshuffle of her shadow cabinet, give the top Treasury post to Andrew Griffith, who worked closely on and then stoutly defended Truss’s 2022 fiscal debacle.
So Labour will continue to blame the previous Tory government for the bond market problems (and most everything else wrong with the country). Having been in office almost 2 years now, that claim is starting to wear thin. Even supporters of the PM have to admit that the economy is now their problem.
Ms. Badenoch has a great deal of ammunition to use after two years of hard Labour. But her position is hardly a solid one. She is Leader of the Opposition, but Reform is the real opposition to Labour at the ballot box. Mr. Burnham will use that to great effect in the future.
By the same token, Mr. Burnham has a mess on his hands. Borrowing costs are rising, and the need to borrow stems from a sense that the nation is over-taxed. In fact, Britain is paying the price of a decade of austerity that flew in the face of established economic science. When the economy is on its backside, cutting spending only makes things worse by cutting down on demand.
He told the House, “This will be a government grounded in fiscal responsibility. It will stick to the fiscal rules, but at the same time, we will help reduce cost-of-living pressure on our constituents, and that’s the approach that we will take.”
That may be mathematically possible, but it puts the government in a financial straightjacket that will reduce the opportunity for bold action. Mr. Burnham has already signaled his will be a government of incremental improvements, if there are any improvements at all.
The Telegraph ran a piece this morning on how pointless PMQs are. Essentially, Mr. Burnham promised everyone a puppy, and Ms. Badenoch scowled at the public’s gullibility, and that is pointless according to the paper.
Having the chief executive in front of the nation’s elected representatives being held to some sort of account on a weekly basis may be dull. Pointless, though, it is not. It demands that the PM actually pay attention to the political landscape in a very detailed way. Can one imagine Donald Trump surviving PMQs? Not even with a head full of hallucinogens.
The Burnham-Badenoch Show will not replace the classics like Morecombe and Wise or the Two Ronnies. But what the world did learn is that Mr. Burnham appears to enjoy being in office, unlike Sir Keir. That changes the dynamic at the dispatch box.
Mr. Burnham is comfortable answering questions. Those questions are going to be much harder after party conference season this autumn ends. Then, deliverables need to be on their way.