Andy Burnham Needs to Ignore the Marketing Jargon and Focus on the Rich and the Powerful
One month into his premiership, Burnham's seemingly scattergun political interventions have all been aimed at so-called 'Rooted Patriots'. It makes sense in the short-term, but could be his undoing.
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In his first month as prime minister, Andy Burnham has announced a welter of new policies and interventions. At first blush they seem scattergun and arbitrary, running the gamut from cutting bus fares to targeting vape shops on high streets, or calling a Cobra meeting to deal with a country beset by droughts and wildfires, only to emerge with a plea to retailers to stop selling disposable BBQs.
In fact, there is nothing arbitrary about his policies. If you want to understand how Burnham is governing as prime minister, and to predict what he will and won’t do in the future you need to understand “segmentation analysis”. It is the key to unlocking his thinking, it points to the limitations of his political approach, and it explains why he will struggle to resolve our climate-war-inequality polycrisis.