Is Andy Burnham A Bit Too Mad For It?

Andy Burnham is quite the busy bastard, isn’t he?

Every day, a new announcement. Every day, a fresh t-shirt. Every day, a bunch of content designed to remind us that he's an ordinary guy, with ordinary feelings, ordinary interests and ordinary shoes.

I want to like him, I really do.

I voted for a Labour government and was about the only person left in Britain who seemed to think Keir Starmer was an alright bloke.

I mean, he came off as a bit boring, sure. But I quite like the idea of a boring leader.

Burnham is something else.

He reminds me of a thrusting head teacher at an overperforming inner-city academy, driven by ambition and an overwhelming desire to show the kids that he is just like them. “Did you see the game last night? etc”

He makes me feel a bit nauseous. I’ve been trying to work out why. I mean, his policies seem sound. He has managed to quickly get Reform on the run. Why do I feel so queasy?

I know why. It’s because he’s a bit like me. Eurgh.

Burnham likes Oasis, adidas trainers and football. Not in the same way posh politicians pretend to like these things, either. He really is obsessed with Everton and pop music. Listen to his appearance on the Life Goals podcast from a few years back if you want the evidence.

Andy Burnham is one of us. By ‘us’ I mean the Loaded Generation of boys and girls who came of age in the nineties, defined themselves by their pop cultural tastes and hedonistic proclivities, and never fully grew out of it.

He went to a state school. He never gave up his season ticket.

Previous generations saw all that youthful folly as something they eventually needed to grow out of. But members of the Loaded Generation wear our arrested development as a flex.

I don’t want to grow up because growing up is fucking boring. I want to be daft, optimistic and constantly entertained.

I talk to my teenagers about music. I make them Spotify playlists. I lend them clothes. I bought them season tickets at West Ham. All of my friendships are built around the same stuff they were built around when I was 18, minus the booze and drugs.

I am happy to live this way, but I am also aware of how cringeworthy it is. I try not to think about that too much.

The problem is, there’s a bloke who just took over the country who has started to make me think about it every day.

There he is on my Instagram feed, in his fucking kitchen, with his fucking mug of tea.

“Hi lads! Remember Spike Island? Remember Euro 96? Remember when you could get leathered on Caffreys and Hooch, then still have enough change to get a cab home in time to watch the Prince Naseem fight? Of course you do! That’s why I’m asking you to get behind my ideas for reforming social care and applying sensible limits to immigration!”

I used to moan about how politicians were out of touch, posh and old. Now I’ve got one who is in touch, normal and youngish. And it’s creeping me out.

Maybe I want a crusty old Tory back in charge.

But not really.

I just want Andy Burnham to stop reminding me of myself. Because I’m a fucking idiot and fucking idiots have no place running the country.