The Global Crises Andy Burnham Cannot Escape
The PM-in-waiting will find himself stretched between Manchester, Westminster and the international stage
By all accounts, Andy Burnham thinks Keir Starmer has spent too much time abroad in his two years as Prime Minister and will not seek the same sort of profile on the global stage. In response, Starmer – still smarting from what he perceives as a political and personal betrayal from his own side – has pointedly suggested that Burnham may not find it so easy in practice to organise his time this way, such is the intertwined nature of domestic and international affairs. The conduct of foreign policy in almost every advanced industrial democracy is becoming more centralised, so it will not be easy to buck the trend. As will become apparent from the first briefings of the new No 10 team, national security is not only the first job of every prime minister; it is also one of the few areas in which the sovereign decision-making power of the principal is genuinely consequential.
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