When assessing British political speeches, even many critics of the New Labour years measure success against Tony Blair, a leader whose podium appearances are regarded as the peak of oratory.
On that measure, Andrew Marr, the former BBC political editor and now the New Statesman’s chief political commentator, reached for the ultimate accolade. “Rather to my surprise, I have to report Andy Burnham is at least as good a platform speaker” as Blair, he said. “Perhaps better.”
Piers Morgan, the former News of the World editor, concluded that Burnham’s speech to the Labour party conference on Tuesday was “one of the best, and most powerfully delivered, by a British politician in a very long time”.
Burnham’s onstage performance was also praised by Tim Shipman, the right-of-centre Spectator magazine’s political editor. He concluded it was sub-Blair but “as good as anything we’ve seen since”.
Shipman wrote: “I’ve been attending party conferences since 2001 and in that time I’ve heard about 70 leaders’ speeches from all the parties. This was one of the most important and defining – I expect it will remain among the half-dozen most memorable.”
Patrick Maguire, the Times’s chronicler of Labour’s inner workings, agreed. “The Labour party will talk about this speech for years and it will be remembered, as so few speeches are, as a formative, watershed moment in the history of this young century, for better or worse,” he said.
The praise was not universal, however. Quentin Letts, the Mail’s sketch writer, said the speech was so saccharine in its plea for unity that “I got diabetic twinges”.
While there was both fulsome and grudging praise for Burnham’s delivery – the Daily Mail’s highly critical editorial on the speech said the “PM’s performance was slick, oozing everyman charm” – its radical nature placed it squarely in the crosshairs of the right-leaning media. A new Brexit deal, the prospect of a proportional voting system and his social care and housing plans were all targeted.
The Mail’s front page described the “triple shock” of Burnham’s pension changes, care plans and Brexit rethink. It regarded the speech as the “most leftwing speech by a PM since [the] 1970s”. The Telegraph said it was a “road back to a failed past”.
The Sun, which has a difficult relationship with Burnham amid claims that he will not give any interviews or opinion pieces to the once dominant red top, did not hold back. It labelled the speech the “locky horror show”, a reference to Burnham’s pledge to end the pensions triple lock that guarantees big increases in the state pension.
“The British vote system ‘rigged’,” it said. “Government to seize private homes,” it claimed, a reference to Burnham’s plan to remove homes from bad landlords.
Trevor Kavanagh, the Sun’s veteran political commentator, was damning. He described the address as “the most divisive speech I’ve heard from any prime minister”. He even described the prime minister’s emotional reference to his late father as “a blatant pitch for sympathy from voters who might otherwise have been shocked by what we can all now see as Burnham’s truly socialist revolution”.
The Sun’s editorial column lamented Burnham’s lack of action on cutting the “ballooning welfare bill”.
Attacks on Burnham’s lack of attention to the welfare bill –a theme for both the Conservatives and Reform UK – was reflected across the rightwing media.
“Who pays for PM’s New Jerusalem,” asked the Mail’s editorial column, suggesting the speech would have pleased Labour supporters in the hall but concerned the general voter.
It also took the chance to put the boot into Burnham’s predecessor, Keir Starmer. “There’s no question he is an oratorical improvement on his incorrigibly wooden predecessor, a strong candidate for worst public speaker in political history,” it jibed. “[Burnham] knew his audience, enthralling them with his northern working-class boy made good life story. The truth is that Middle England is about to be deluged with new tax rises, but ‘Honest Andy’ is too craven to admit it.”
The Daily Express’s front-page headline decried the speech as a “crying shame for our nation”.
Despite praising the delivery, the Spectator’s Shipman cited “room for improvement” in the speech’s content, citing potential flaws in his plan for a national care service and the limited early savings from ditching the pensions triple lock. He argued Burnham had “no plan for growth” – the issue that has plagued prime ministers of both main parties.
Shipman concluded that the speech amounted to “the most partisan leftwing set of priorities we have seen since the days of Harold Wilson”.
What united coverage was a conclusion that unlike Starmer, Burnham had produced a clear statement of intent about who he was and what he wanted to achieve – for better or worse.
The Times’s Maguire concluded: “There will be a hell of a row before we know whether it’s an epoch-defining Thatcherism of the left or Truss with charisma. But for the first time in recent history, the leader of the Labour party wants that argument and is making his own.”
The Times’s editorial column, however, reflected the political right’s early verdict on Burnham’s address – an appeal based in Labour’s comfort zone.
“Mr Burnham’s speech was in some ways a curious throwback,” it stated. “Labour is becoming more middle class by the year, in composition and support, yet he imagines it as a vehicle dedicated to the working class of his memory. What exactly are wealth creators supposed to make of this charming man?”
