In 2017, our Prime Minister told the Manchester Evening News he would refuse to meet Donald Trump as a “matter of principle”. Principles, we all know, don’t pay the bills. And although he would baulk at the comparison, Burnham’s first 11 weeks in office have demonstrated just how much he and the President have in common.
Burnham governs through the media – a lack of preparation, like Trump, he disguises as candour. When he refused to back Heathrow expansion on Laura Kuenssberg’s programme, years of government policy went out of the window. London is a global city that produces almost a quarter of Britain’s GDP; its wealth creators – the people who pay for our schools and hospitals and everything else – need frequent and convenient flights. But our Andy has a better idea: making greater use of spare capacity on a runway 190 miles away in Manchester.
If Trump declared Miami did not need more airport capacity as there was plenty spare at Palm Beach International, a stone’s throw from Mar-a-Lago, the media would, with some justification, call him impulsive, illogical and parochial. But Burnham uses concern for regional inequality as cover for his sectionalism. Number 10 North is built in this mould. Who cares if it’s sucked up all of Greater Manchester Police’s budget for the year? Let’s stick it to Westminster! Those who criticise Trump for using taxpayers’ money to fund his White House ballroom ought to apply to the same level of scrutiny to Burnham’s vanity projects.
Both men, too, behave more like pundits than politicians – shifting their positions depending on who’s asking the questions. Last week, Burnham gave three different broadcasters three different positions on Europe. He told the BBC another referendum was “possible”; at ITV he emphasised that “referendums do damage… dividing households and communities”; on Channel 4, he wouldn’t rule out putting rejoin in his manifesto. Burnham tells people what they want to hear, because, in the same manner as Trump, he wants to be loved.
Trump’s need for approval has produced years of maximalist declarations followed by hasty retreats – a habit Wall Street dubbed TACO: “Trump Always Chickens Out”. Burnham, however, has retreated before he has even begun. He is delaying the publication of Alan Milburn’s review into NEETs until after the Budget, lest its recommendations expose his failure to shrink in the welfare bill. That evasion, like his insistence that “national security must not come at the expense of social security”, exposes a hard truth: people pleasers never make good leaders because they always duck the difficult decisions.
This same reluctance to confront trade-offs leads Trump and Burnham to parrot nebulous slogans, onto which voters can project whatever they please. For decades now, Labour figures have relentlessly mocked the concept of “Make America Great Again” – David Lammy even compared it to a Hitler speech – yet Burnham’s “Hope Again” is equally vague and equally vacuous. His promise to achieve “growth in every postcode”, too, has echoes of Trump’s election promise to “end inflation”. Almost two years later, US inflation stands at 3.4 per cent. My fellow Herefordshire residents should not hold their breath for record growth.
These slogans are transparently empty because neither man bothers to disguise the absence of a plan. Trump promised to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours. Burnham promises a National Care Service, free at the point of use and built on NHS principles, before its funding, structure or timetable have been settled. His electoral reform pledge will require years – and an extensive boundary review – to implement even if he cobbles together a coalition in 2029.
Where Donald has his red hat, Andy has his black T-shirt. Pints, footy and pork scratchings are Trump’s man’s man routine wrapped in a Union Jack. His conference speech, too, revolved around his father: the Britain he believed in and the opportunities it gave his three sons. His mother, present in the hall, was cast as a supporting character. He is by no means a sexist, but women are right to question whether the 1980s were as wonderful as the Prime Minister remembers.
Burnham has spent years taking credit for Manchester’s successes and blaming Westminster for its failures. Trump has made a political creed of the same trick, turning on the media, the bureaucracy and his predecessors – and appealing directly to the people – whenever events turn against him. When things go wrong in Downing Street, we should expect Burnham to follow suit and blame everyone but himself. The British public are surely too wise to fall for it.