Prime Minister Andy Burnham - ‘I’m a better politician for having failed.’
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How did Andy Burnham describe his journey to becoming Prime Minister after past leadership losses?
Hello and welcome to How to Fail with me, Elizabeth Day. This is a very, very special episode. We don't often get politicians who are willing to admit to their mistakes and talk about failure, but today we have someone in an incredibly unique position. Before we get started on this conversation, please do remember to like, follow and subscribe so that you never miss a single episode. In his first speech as Prime Minister outside Number 10 Downing Street, Andy Burnham promised a new politics of hope, saying it was time to invest in people's success rather than paying for failure. It was a line that could just as accurately reflect his personal trajectory. Born in Liverpool, raised in Cheshire and forged in Manchester, Burnham is the middle of three sons.
His father, Roy, was a telephone engineer. His mother, Eileen, a GP's receptionist. He joined the Labour Party as a teenager after watching Boys from the Black Stuff on TV and, encouraged by his English teacher, applied for a place at Cambridge. He was rejected from his first interview, but was later picked out of the pool by Fitzwilliam College, where he met his wife, Marie France, and graduated with a 2.1 in English. Burnham briefly became a journalist on illustrious titles such as container management, but his heart was always with politics. He got hired first as a researcher before being elected in 2001 under Tony Blair, later becoming a cabinet minister for Gordon Brown and going on to serve in the shadow cabinet under Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn for six years.
Burnham ran two failed leadership bids himself before standing down from Parliament and being elected Mayor of Greater Manchester with 63% of the vote. By any metric, Burnham made a success of his mayoral terms, becoming so popular he was nicknamed King of the North. He probably prefers that label to Kemi Badenoch's jibe that he was nothing more than a pair of eyelashes and a black T-shirt. Despite once claiming that Westminster makes a fraud of good people, Burnham is now our seventh prime minister in 10 years, having won a decisive by-election in Makerfield and having received nominations from 94% of Labour MPs in an unopposed leadership contest. So, third time lucky. Still, as Burnham said in 2022, I never relax.
I always feel I'm having to prove myself. There's never a sense of, I'm here, I've arrived. Prime Minister, welcome to How to Fail.
Thank you so much, Elizabeth. That was a very fair introduction.
I'm glad, but surely is there a sense that you have now arrived?
I never feel like that in any job. And I get the sense that if you do, you're not in the right frame of mind because you've always got to prove yourself, haven't you? You've always got to challenge yourself to prove people who doubt you wrong. I mean, I always carry that sense with me. I don't think that will ever change.
Well, I think that's the opposite of entitlement, which is precisely what we need right now.
Yeah, there's not much entitlement here. I've always had a bit of that imposter syndrome that many people from these parts and other parts of the country carry with them. You walk in somewhere, your first job or going to university, as you said, always struggled and waited for the tap on the shoulder. It took a long time for that sense to leave me. But eventually you get beyond that. But even now I still have that feeling of, no, I need to show the people who don't think I can do this that I can do this. And I've... Got that feeling right now in this job. And I've got the bit between my teeth. And actually, I go into this job probably differently than anyone before. A bit more like when I went in as mayor of Greater Manchester.
I learned there just to be myself. I knew the city. I knew the people. Right. I'll just be myself in this job. I was free from Westminster. And I'm carrying that forward now back to Westminster to say, you know what? All of you down here with the way you do things and you're strange ways. Well, I'm going to come in and carry a bit of Manchester back in here and show you there's a better way of doing politics.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
How did Andy Burnham describe his journey to becoming Prime Minister after past leadership losses?
0:00–12:55
2
How does imposter syndrome shape Andy Burnham’s approach to leadership and authenticity?
12:55–32:00
3
How has Andy Burnham’s Catholic faith influenced his politics and values?
32:00–42:17
4
How did studying English at Cambridge shape Andy Burnham’s communication and political style?
42:17–45:48