Could Andy Burnham be the most important PM since Thatcher?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
This is a Global Production.

**Neal Lawson** (0:04)
Already I see the walls closing in around Burnham. There are deep structural and cultural problems about governing a society today, which are going to require a deep set of economic, cultural and intellectual ideas, organisation, alliances, you name it. And that's the question for Burnham now. Has he thought about those things deeply enough, or is he going to continue to think about those things deeply enough to set himself on the right course?

**Lewis Goodall** (0:32)
If Burnham does fail, the backlash could be fast, furious and possibly fascist. You think that's the stakes?

**Neal Lawson** (0:38)
What is the cultural, technological zeitgeist? Where do people want to go? What do they aspire to be?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:44)
I am going to do things differently.
I am going to break with the more of the same approach that has got us here. I am going to give Britain the circuit breaker it needs. Four decades of the neo-liberalism that began in the 1980s have not been kind to the places that built our party. It is an end to trickle down economics, which did not trickle down very much at all. The change will be the biggest change in our lifetimes to the way the country is run. We will take power out of here and carry it into every postcode in the land so that they can do more and in doing more build a new economy.

**Lewis Goodall** (1:30)
Andy Burnham, the new Prime Minister, is talking a big game. He isn't just coming out with the usual bromide you'd expect from an incoming Labour Prime Minister, a stronger, fairer society, a government for the people, for the many, not the few, addressing injustice. He's talking about something bigger, something more conceptual. He isn't just talking about making society better. He's talking about remaking society, about recreating the economic and political settlement in which we live. He wants to finally turn the page on as he seizes the world that Margaret Thatcher left us.
In other words, he's talking about changing not just what the state does, but how we think about the state, how we think about politics to create a new common sense. In this, if he were to succeed, he would join a far more elite club than the burgeoning ranks of former Prime Ministers. He would become known as one of the great political teachers who leaves a legacy far beyond their years in office. A Clement Attlee, a Margaret Thatcher, perhaps a Tony Blair. But what does Andy Burnham think he's reversing when he talks about 40 years of neoliberalism? What is neoliberalism anyway? And what exactly does Andy Burnham want to replace the old settlement with? If someone knows, it would be Neil Lawson. He's an academic, a thinker, a writer, intellectual, longtime doyen of Labour circles. Long ago, he advised Blair in the run up to the 1997 election, but he came to be sceptical of what new Labour was, and has long argued that Labour must become a broader, more vital movement again. He has had a long-standing relationship with Andy Burnham, and is credited with developing some of his thinking. He shares the belief that Labour cannot afford to simply govern better. It must govern anew, create a new politics. So he asked him in the News Agents studio to ask, why does he think neoliberalism has been so bad? What are his hopes for this new government? And if Burnhamism might replace it, then what might Burnhamism actually be?
Welcome to The News Agents.
Well, Neal, thanks so much for joining us. I want to have a slightly more conceptual conversation about what the intellectual forces are, which might be powering Burnham. But before we get there, just on the particulars of the week, how do you think he's done first three or four days?

**Neal Lawson** (3:58)
I think it's mixed really. Well, yeah, I mean, I think, look, it's been good that there's been a trail of announcements.
But some of those have shown that making announcements is a tricky business. You've got to work out where your fundings come from and you get tripped up if you've not done your homework. Look, I think by and large, I think the cabinet is an upgrade on what was there before. It's good to see people like Miata in there. It's good to see Angela back.
But I think the big part of the week is that, which will segue us into the bigger conversation, is that if you are serious about rolling back 40 years of neoliberalism, the first person you think of as your chancellor is not John Healey. John Healey is a very decent, loyal, good labor politician, a senior one, that he has not been spending his whole life thinking about how you roll back 40 years of neoliberalism. One person in the cabinet has been thinking about that and knows how to run the treasury. And Burnham decided not to put that person into...