“There is a real appetite to see action very quickly within the first six months of his premiership, particularly on the cost of living,” said Tryl. Devolution might play well with voters but Burnham “has to relate it back to the bread and butter issues,” added Mattinson.
Burnham’s tiny window
Voters are increasingly ready to embrace radicalism. POLITICO’s focus group in Makerfield, Burnham’s new parliamentary constituency, conducted by Public First last month found voters were cynical about the ability of any politician to improve their lives.
Worse than that, there’s almost a nihilistic instinct creeping in.
More in Common regularly asks poll respondents whether they think Britain’s institutions should be preserved and improved, or instead left to burn. “Currently we still have a majority in the ‘preserve and improve’ — 60 percent,” Tryl told an audience in Westminster last week. “But 40 percent are in the ‘just let them all burn’ group, which I think is quite a sobering statistic.”
While Trump himself is not popular, many focus group participants approve of the fact that he at least seems to get things done and to do what he says he will do, regardless of the opposition he encounters. “People have a real craving for a leader with strength,” Mattinson added.
Burnham has “the most minuscule of windows” to convince Labour’s lost supporters to give the party another chance, Mattinson said. “He is going to have to burst onto the stage and look like a new government and look like a different government,” she said.
Burnham has said he wants a more consensual style of politics, working with rival parties on the left and the right to find solutions, instead of scoring political points. But the biggest risk for him seems to be that impatient voters won’t be prepared to wait for the culture to shift before seeing results.
Perhaps Burnham has already learned from Trump that he needs to make an instant impact when he takes over, in the way the president did at the start of his second term this year. “I am ready,” Burnham said when he formally took over as Labour leader on Friday. “I have a plan.”