David Gauke is a former Justice Secretary and was an independent candidate in South-West Hertfordshire at the 2019 general election.
There is no doubt that there is a Burnham bounce. Labour’s poll rating has improved and – quite possibly – so has the national mood. Andy Burnham is a more approachable and relatable figure than his predecessor, much more at ease in front of the cameras, and has a better understanding of how to make a political argument.
Some commentators have ascribed part of his success down to the “politics of trying”. As pollster Luke Tryl put it, Burnham is “not shying away from saying things are difficult but explaining how you’re pushing every avenue on a matter the public care about very deeply and keeping them in the loop”, in contrast to the Starmer government which “projected the ‘politics of can’t’”.
Patrick Maguire in The Times had earlier made a similar point, that “this early phase of Burnham’s premiership is self-consciously demonstrative: that he is listening, that he has tried, that he has managed, despite nothing much having changed, to do something”. It is all about bringing the voters with you by building up trust. If you can show that you understand and share the voters’ instincts and are trying to do everything possible to give the voters what they want, the electorate will reward you for your good intentions.
Both Tryl and Maguire were commenting specifically on the issue of the early release scheme, which the well-sourced Maguire described as the matter that has “commanded most of his time and attention” in his first weeks in office. It is – as I know only too well – a very difficult issue.
For the purposes of this column, I will essentially make one point on the matter. Ultimately, it is impossible to escape the arithmetic.
To elaborate a little, we have approximately 89,000 prison places in England and Wales with no prospect of increasing the capacity quickly. The Ministry of Justice forecasts that we will reach capacity in November. The Independent Sentencing Review, which I chaired, recommended an early release scheme which would have reduced the prison population by 4,000 compared to the then projections, but there has been significant political pushback on that. Any Government is entitled to depart from these recommendations, but the prison capacity headroom remains tight and, therefore, the arithmetic remains broadly the same.
If some prisoners who were going to be released are now going to stay behind bars, others who were going to remain behind bars are going to be released. Burnham has expressed an interest in deporting more foreign offenders or releasing more women and those serving indeterminate sentences (“imprisonment for public protection” or “IPPs”). Each involve trade-offs (and, for what it is worth, I would be very, very cautious about a hasty release of those serving IPP sentences).
In the end, the Government must decide, but it must be a decision that ensures that the numbers add up. They had one go at it, using the limited headroom to exclude rapists and other serious sexual offenders from the early release scheme, but then faced a public outcry that this did not cover two of those convicted of the manslaughter of PC Andrew Harper, and are to have another go.
Again, it is worth stressing that there are no easy answers – at least not if you are in government. Outside of government, one can come up with ideas that will never be implemented and, therefore, tested. That is a luxury that is not available to ministers. Implement the unimplementable and the failure will soon be exposed – in this context potentially with prisons reaching capacity with devastating consequences for the criminal justice system.
This is where there is a need to express some scepticism about the “politics of trying”. Of course, voters appreciate it at the time when a politician demonstrably shares and articulates their concerns, but if trying does not result in succeeding, the warmth of feeling is not going to last. The risk is that expectations are raised and then dashed, only to result in even greater disillusionment.
Our recent political history is full of examples of big promises that were never going to be fulfilled. Whatever one thinks about Brexit, many of those who voted for it were left disappointed, notwithstanding that the leader of Vote Leave was the Prime Minister who implemented it. “Levelling up” was one of many attempts to reduce regional inequality, but few in our poorer regions would currently accept that it has made much of a difference. There have been many promises to bring down immigration, followed by increases in immigration. The boats were not stopped. Successive governments have pledged to protect the cost of living, but the cost of living has still been squeezed. Starmer promised a laser focus on improving economic growth, but in office was too easily distracted by other objectives and growth has been lacklustre.
Government after government has come to office over-promising and under-delivering. There are good reasons why this happens. First, voters want to believe that there are easy answers to problems and will reward optimists who make big promises. Second, politicians – many of whom are not short of self-confidence and are quick to dismiss the capabilities of other politicians from different political tribes – will often believe that they can find better answers than their predecessors ever could. Whether it was Boris Johnson dismissing the doomsters and gloomsters, or the Starmer government’s confident belief that not being Tories would be more than enough to solve every problem, early optimism was soon followed by disillusionment.
Burnham has his own version of this mindset. For him, our national problems stem from forty years of being governed by a neo-liberal, out-of-touch, London-centric, establishment elite. Now that we have a business-friendly socialist, in-touch, northwestern, man-of-the-people in charge, things will be different.
Again, one can see why this immediately has appeal to some. Burnham has always had strong powers of empathy, able to put himself on the side of the victim and articulate their fears and concerns. But empathy will not always be enough. There are some issues – and dealing with prison numbers or, for that matter, the public finances – where the numbers are the numbers and the facts do not care about anyone’s feelings.
Public disillusionment does not stem from politicians failing to understand the public’s priorities and trying to meet them; it has been that politicians have too often failed to deliver what has been promised. At times, this is because the promises have been undeliverable.
That is not an argument for, to use Tryl’s phrase, “the politics of ‘can’t’”. The Starmer government lacked a vision and a clear sense of priorities that left it at the mercy of events. But a government needs to be rooted in honesty and realism. It needs to be able to identify the objectives it can deliver, and the trade-offs it is willing to make. It needs to be disciplined in avoiding over-promising, building up trust by showing not telling. Of course, it needs to understand public sentiment and respond to it, but it also needs to understand that public opinion is changeable and not always coherent. Sometimes a government needs to be willing to take tough decisions and stand by them. The consequences of failing to do so will be more visible in advance to the government than the general public, but that does not make those consequences any less real.
Burnham is a Prime Minister who demonstrably tries, and the public will appreciate that for a while. But it is ultimately not good intentions that matter. Trying must be followed by succeeding, and that is a much harder test.