Andy Burnham has had a very strong first couple of weeks as prime minister of the United Kingdom – not many people would deny him that.
In his first week alone, the ‘King of the North’ set up his own castle in Manchester with No10 North, slashed business rates by 20% for pubs, clubs and live music venues, scrapped VAT on electricity to help with household bills and seems ready to become the first prime minister in generations to tackle the issue of adult social care in England.
Meanwhile, Burnham has also pledged to eradicate rough sleeping, strengthen ties with the EU, paused the early prisoner release scheme and capped bus fares at £2 across England.
These early acts have seen the polls experience what is quickly becoming known as the ‘Burnham bounce’ as some even show Labour overtaking Reform for the first time since April 2025.
This said, critics have called many of his early changes inconsequential, for example VAT cut on electricity will likely only save households £45 across the year, the business rate cuts will save venues around £1,100 a year while other costs go up, and bus fares were already capped in many places.
However, many of these people miss the point that it is not just, strangely enough, the policy itself that matters, but something much bigger – something that Keir Starmer did not possess or utilise nearly enough.
Communication as a pathway to popularity
Government is always in action. While politicians in the Commons suggest, debate and denounce, Whitehall is busy toiling away on policy and paperwork.
Every government has proposed new bills that eventually pass into law, some, of course, have been more influential than others.
However, you could make some of the biggest reforms this nation has ever seen, but if you don’t tell anyone about it in an effective manner, you might as well not have bothered, at least for your own sake.
Keir Starmer did make a difference during his two years in charge – Full Fact’s government tracker shows this.
The organisation has been tracking Labour’s 93 key pledges made in their 2024 election manifesto, and they have found that 23 of these have already been achieved by Starmer’s government.
Another 12 were on track before Burnham became PM, with 16 now on track.
Six were not kept.
What this shows us is that Starmer’s government was not a lazy one, it was in the process of getting the things it was elected to do done.
One of the most influential changes under the Starmer government was the Renters’ Rights Act which has helped strengthen significantly renters’ position in the face of landlords.
However, Starmer’s biggest issue was the way he communicated this.
The former prime minister was very traditional in the sense that you would only ever see him in formal environments, his statements came via X in a very concise manner while his policies were announced at press conferences where journalists could hit right back.
Burnham, has nailed the modern politician.
The TikTok Prime Minister
In the last few years, we’ve seen politicians become braver and braver when it comes to embracing the internet and social media.
It is no longer some fad amongst the youth, social media has existed en masse since the likes of MySpace in the early 2000s, which means people now in their late 30s would have been teenagers in a early social media age.
Furthermore, adults have adopted the platforms willingly, with around 80% of the UK population using social media.
Simply put, this is a direct channel from a central government to 4 out of 5 people in the UK where the only response back is through written comments – it is hyper-specific advertising.
While it is obvious that Burnham has seen such widespread coverage of his early changes because he is the big news story of the week, month and probably year, this still all comes with it’s own newsy tinge.
However, when you have Andy Burnham speaking directly to you down a camera while you doomscroll through videos of cute cats and blokes speedrunning Tesco, it feels more personable.
Yes, Starmer did also have social media channels, but you couldn’t help feel that everything was a little too clean cut and disingenuous.
Burnham has also been showing people that he has a personality – shudder – and a normal one at that.
Videos of him in the style of the sitcom The Office and top five blind ranking videos have brought the prime minister into a realm that the everyday person can understand and even enjoy.
Now, Burnham isn’t the first to do this, New York’s Zohran Mamdani charmed the masses with his videos where he expressed his love for The Strokes, showed off his football knowledge and even spoke about cricket in depth.
Meanwhile, Green Party leader Zack Polanski has for a long time been wielding social media to his advantage, a key component in connecting with the party’s younger demographic.
But, it’s hard to deny that this works when we see so much praise coming back from the very place Burnham has been setting out his stall on social media.
Can Burnham’s PR machine save the Labour Party
While this disparity between Burnham and Starmer continues to become more apparent, it is obvious to those now in power that this has for a long time been an issue.
There are currently around 12 job roles working in social media in government departments being advertised on the government’s website, many highly paid and split between Manchester and London.
This is a clear sign of intent from Burnham’s government that if they can continue to make change, and crucially communicate this effectively to people about what is happening and how it will affect them, then general satisfaction with the government will continue to go up.
The early polls have already reflected this.
It is no secret that communication is an important government tool, propaganda is one, shadier, variant of such a concept.
However, with three years to the latest possible general election, this tactic, as long as it remains truthful, accurate and tactful, could be Labour’s last hope and greatest weapon in stopping Reform from coming to power and winning the next election.