Politics: starting the countdown

By Richard North - June 26, 2026

Students of modern history may well see in the present inter regnum, where we await the coronation of The Replacement, a sort of hiatus not dissimilar to the Phony War – that period between September 1939 and May 1940 when the land war in Europe stagnated and nothing much seemed to be happening.

The parallel sort of works because, after the flurry of publicity following the Makerfield by-election, media interest has subsided somewhat as there is nothing much happening of any great interest to report.

Some newspapers are reduced to making statements of the bleedin’ obvious, such as the Financial Times which is headlining its latest report: “Andy Burnham will have to make tough choices”. Who knew?

Predictably, this paper sees the Burnham government’s handling of fiscal policy as a major test, bundling concerns about public investment versus private sector spending and the growing calls to raise defence expenditure – all overlaid by the UK’s rising long-term debt trajectory – which the paper finds “troubling”.

It calls for reining in welfare spending even if that upsets a portion of the electorate and argues that the “triple lock” on state pensions is unsustainable. It doesn’t like the idea of higher taxes, noting the threat of even higher levies have been a drag on private-sector activity throughout the term of Starmer’s government.

Appointing a chancellor who has credibility with business and investors will be crucial, the paper adds and then tells us that the broader growth agenda will also warrant tough pragmatism.

Burnham, we are told, wants to “reindustrialise” Britain but – as the FT would have it – the nation’s numerous recent industrial strategies have petered out, in part because of a scattergun drive to be world-leading across too many sectors. Of these, the paper thinks that boosting the AI sector ought to be a priority, although Burnham has expressed support for tighter tech regulation.

That, and deciding whether to approve further activities in the North Sea to support production and jobs in the oil and gas sector, building on Labour’s existing planning reforms with further liberalisations to enable Britain to build infrastructure faster and more cheaply, and the implementation of pro-growth tax reforms are added to the list.

This wish-list sounds more like fantasy politics rather than real life and it might be difficult to square with the description of Burnham by a senior Labour figure as “Labour’s first woman prime minister”.

This is from Tim Shipman in the Spectator, although he is quick to point out that The Replacement is not hankering after gender reassignment. Rather, we are told, this reflects his interests.

“The reason Labour have always craved, but also been cautious about, a female leader is because, in a Labour government, she could have an unashamedly female agenda, focused on health, education, family finances and issues like safer streets, social care, online safety for kids, that are disproportionately important to women”, we are told.

This would be unlike the Tories’ female leaders, who are under internal pressure – and the weight of history – to show how tough they are on traditionally male issues.

Now, along comes The Replacement, “surrounded by female advisers and backers, but more importantly, genuinely passionate about all those traditionally female-oriented issues, and much less so with the bombs and budgets”. So – we are asked to consider: “could we finally see what Labour has failed to deliver all these years – a female PM in all but sex?”.

Unsurprisingly, that was too much of an open goal for Badenough to miss, drawing some well-deserved mockery with the comment that “Labour might have changed leader, but they still don’t know what a woman is”.

JK Rowling came up with the best riposte, though, posting on X: “Great news. The Labour Party has finally found a woman they fancy as leader. It’s a man who’ll be ‘a female PM in all but sex’. A senior figure in the party actually thought that was a good thing to say out loud”.

However, none of this, so far, has been heard directly from the lips of The Replacement who, when it comes to policy, is something of a tabula rasa. The good news (or bad, depending on your disposition) is that the uncertainty may soon come to an end.

The BBC is telling us that The Replacement “could be leader in weeks under Labour timetable”, with him being installed as early as 17 July.

This, of course, can only happen is no other MPs enter the race. This we will know by 15 July, which is the deadline to potential challengers to gather the backing of a minimum of 81 MPs. Should anyone get that far, they have another day to submit nominations from affiliated bodies such as trade unions, in order to stay in the contest.

Says the BBC, if only one candidate meets that threshold, the new leader will be announced at a special Labour conference on 17 July, before being appointed PM by the King.

If more than one MP is able to garner enough support to progress to the next stage, a ballot of Labour party members and affiliated supporters would take place between 6 and 27 August. Under that scenario, the final result would be announced on 29 August.

So far, only Burnham has confirmed that he intends to stand and the indications are that he will be able to see off any competitors and take the crown on the 17th, whence we might expect a raft of policy announcements – possibly in his acceptance speech.

With a “honeymoon” probably measured in nanoseconds, the real question many commentators will be keeping in mind is how long he will last as PM. At least he shouldn’t have much difficulty beating Truss’s 49 days – especially as the bulk of the period will be during the summer break.

Oddly, it is given to the Guardian sportswriter Jonathan Liew to predict an early demise, blaming the right-wing press and “the algorithm”, making him “basically a meat sacrifice”.

Liew takes the view that the modern British prime minister exists largely as a meat sacrifice: they’re there for the sole purpose of later being sacked as a narrative device. The role itself is less influential than it ever was, he says, blaming the contradictory demands of the voting public which no politician can meet,

Another commentator, Antonio O’Mullony in Brussels Signal, points to the fear of the people which drove Starmer out. That allows a supposition that the same dynamic will see Burnham removed in the not-too-distant future.

For my part, I stick to my view that a hostile social media will do the business, especially as the new prime minister will probably be no more willing to meet public demands than his predecessor.

In this, the indications are that our politicians do not fear their voters enough and are so insulated from them that they have no real understanding of how much they are hated. Perhaps it will take David Betz’s prediction of the assassination of a public figure to bring it home to them.

Either way, The Replacement will doubtless find that a hostile narrative will render his task impossible so that if the coronation dates from 17 June, it will simply mark the start of the countdown for booking the removal vans.