Hugo Gye

speaker

247 appearances 4 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 16 Jul

Hugo Gye’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 4 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 3.

Appearances

newest first · ▶ plays the moment

The Intelligence from The Economist · Starmergeddon: British PM resigns · 22 Jun 2026 podcast

I think he will be able to unite the Labour Party in the short term, because like any political party, Labour's priority is winning, and Burnham has shown that he is a winner.

The question is: what happens in six months, a year, if Burnham goes the way of Keir Starmer and the way of pretty much every leader in the Western world and becomes rapidly?

Rapidly more unpopular once they're in power.

Will Labour still continue to row in behind him if that happens?

I'm not so sure.

What we know is that he has left-wing vibes without it being clear that he actually has a policy platform that would differ very much from Starmer's at all.

He said he thinks it's important that Labour keeps to the manifesto it was elected on in 2024, a manifesto that obviously was drawn up by Keir Starmer.

And that manifesto has some pretty strict limits on on what a new Prime Minister can.

Can do.

For example, that manifesto says that Labour won't raise any of the four biggest taxes that the government levies on the public.

It also says that a Labour government will strictly balance the books.

Well

If you're not going to borrow more and you're not going to tax more, there's not going to be much more money for public spending in the short run.

So Andy Burnham gives off this impression of being, you know, more of a sort of socialist than Keir Starmer, more of a progressive champion.

But it's not actually very clear there's much he can do at all that's all that different.

As I say, it's it's mainly a matter of probably vibes rather than substantial policy shift.

So, this is a question that the Economist looked at a few weeks ago, and we came to the conclusion that no, Britain is not ungovernable.

It's just badly governed.

I think there are some structural issues, particularly in the wake of Brexit, and we have a governing class that has lost the ability to compromise, but a sufficiently strong leader really could change that if Andy Burnham can use his.

Popularity and use his status as a new broom to impress on Labour and impress on the political class as a whole that Britain can only be governed with some hard choices, some hard compromises.

Showing 101–120 of 247 · page 6 of 13