Uma Kumaran: Burnham must empower local people and reform politics
As the country welcomes its seventh PM in ten years, Uma Kumaran says the newest incumbent, Andy Burnham, must ‘crack on’ with the big issues he has pledged to solve, in her regular column for the Slice. It’s. . .
As the country welcomes its seventh PM in ten years, Uma Kumaran says the newest incumbent, Andy Burnham, must ‘crack on’ with the big issues he has pledged to solve, in her regular column for the Slice. It’s been quite a month – Britain has a new Labour Prime Minister, Andy Burnham. As he takes up the most important job in the country, his in-tray is bursting with decisions and information he needs to take in. But before the civil servants’ briefings, messages of congratulations from world leaders and the nuclear codes, as your local MP, I made sure he saw something else first – handwritten post-it notes, from residents in Bow. These were taken straight from my coffee morning, hosted the week before, for local residents. Hearing directly from you is the most valued part of my job. It is the cornerstone of a representative democracy – it shapes everything I do, whether in Westminster or in Stratford and Bow. At my coffee morning, I put the question to residents: ‘If you could tell the new Prime Minister one thing, what would it be?’Suggestions, scribbled on post-it notes and stuck on the wall, ranged from building more affordable homes to better youth provision, from tackling the climate crisis to combatting the rise of the far-right, from broadening NHS bursaries to supporting alternative community housing models, and much more besides. Over the past two years as your MP, I have promised to be your voice to the heart of Government. And that is exactly what I’ve been doing, and what I did with these messages. At the very first opportunity – the Monday after Friday’s coffee morning – I took the suggestions from people in Bow directly to Andy himself. I have unapologetically stood up for the people of Stratford and Bow over the last two years as your MP, no matter who it upsets. A change in Prime Minister is a chance to renew that commitment – I will always make sure your voices are heard. The scale of the challenge facing Andy Burnham is enormous. This Labour government has made important progress, including on renters’ rights, the abolition of the cruel two-child benefit cap and, as Keir Starmer’s final act, passing the transformational Hillsborough Law. But it is clear that there is far more to do, and with much more urgency. Our solutions must be as radical as our diagnosis is damning. Andy understands that – his diagnosis of the over-centralisation of political power and the privatisation of economic power is something that everyone in every part of the country acutely feels, including here in East London. The mission of this Labour government must be to fundamentally reorient our economy and our political system to empower local people everywhere – not just to redistribute the surplus of a deeply unequal economy, nor to divide the spoils of a failing state. In his first actions as Prime Minister, Andy has shown how deeply this philosophy shapes his politics. Pledging to end rough sleeping for good, to tackle the cost-of-living crisis and to reform social care – these are big issues which other governments, particularly during the Conservatives’ austerity years, treated as political impossibilities. The fact that all these things are difficult to do is no excuse for inaction – in fact, it’s more reason to crack on with the job. And that’s exactly what Andy, as our Prime Minister and me, as your Member of Parliament, will get on with doing. Hope is back.