Andy Burnham became Prime Minister almost three weeks ago. There were various quick policy announcements, but on the number one issue, the only one that will matter 20 years from now, it has been all crickets and tumbleweeds (as noted by the Ash Sakars of the world)
In this short blog post I will speculate on why that is (but what would I know?), talk about Burnham’s management of the climate issue while Mayor of Greater Manchester, and conclude with some speculation about where it all might go.
Why the silence?
I have two guesses (not mutually exclusive) as to what might be lying behind the silence.
Primarily, Burnham may simply be keeping his powder as dry as a London park. He may be waiting for Labour Party conference where he can make some big soft-or hard green splashes, and make the disgruntled Greens who have been slagging him off for all of August look petulant and immature. Rope-a-dope, as Muhammed Ali had it all those years ago.
Alternatively, the lack of any public position might be because there are some really fierce battles going on about whether to approve Rosebank or not (doing this would end up bleeding credibility and putting wind back in the sails of the Green Party? Not doing this would piss off the nutters).
Maybe there are third and fourth options too, besides it being deliberate or the consequence of a fiercely divided inner circle.
Burnham’s back story.
I saw Burnham turn up at least one of the “Youth Strike” events held in front of Manchester Central Library in 2019, and give a boilerplate speech. He has undeniable “star quality”, and the naive young activists were eating out of his hand.
I saw Burnham at one of the Mayor’s Green Summits (probably 2021? idk) and he was a slick performer, knowing what the audience wanted and giving it them. They were so relieved that a ‘senior’ politician would say words, that they turned off what critical faculties they had. It was demoralising af, before you took into account the various academics willing to be his figleaf in exchange for REF points.
But the real Burnham example I’d want to push, I wasn’t there for that. But someone whose judgement I trust was there, and she wrote an article for the blog I ran – “Manchester Climate Monthly.” In July I included a portion of that in a letter I sent to the Financial Times (they didn’t publish it, more fool them).
What does it mean, this silence
It means that Burnham doesn’t – despite whatever people want to project onto him – really “get” climate change. He doesn’t understand that the usual triangulation, the usual appeasement is not going to work. He is out of his depth (but then aren’t we all- we have, by ignoring the warnings from scientists for forty years, in uncharted waters which are getting stormier by the day, with new depths to plumb).
It means we will not, of course, get the leadership we need. Ed Miliband is probably crying himself to sleep nightly. So it goes.
Where will it all end?
Sooner or later Burnham is going to have to say SOMETHING about climate change. Indefinite silence and dodging is not an option.
Between now and the Labour Party conference there are the possibilities of nasty extreme heat events (deaths of white people, wildfires) that might require more than the usual handwringing, pearlclutching and calling of COBRA meetings. But then again, there may not.
When he does say something
He will either get monstered by the “right” media outlets (well, no matter what he does, he will get monstered by them) as a crazed eco-lefty.
He will be cautiously given the benefit of the doubt by ‘centrist’ and ‘moderate’ types.
He will “disappoint” the “left” and put renewed wind in the sails of the Green Party – their membership will go up further (and overtake that of Labour, fwiw – it didn’t matter for Corbyn when he hit 500k, back in the day).
Meanwhile, global emissions will continue along at roughly 40bn tonnes a year. The atmospheric concentrations will continue to gallop (two or three parts per million per year. Some year soon we will hit four). The Fafocene will continue to unfold like a bad (well, ordinary) Michael Bay movie.