Labour under Burnham will be faster and bolder, says minister

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy says Labour under an Andy Burnham administrationwill be “faster and bolder”.

She was speaking after 322 Labour MPs nominated Burnham as their next leader, leaving him one short of it being mathematically impossible for anyone else to challenge him.

With Burnham still the only declared candidate, and some MPs saying they backed him but were unable to balloton Thursday, he is expected to be declared Labour leader next week before taking office as premieron 20 July.

Nandy, whose Wigan constituency is next to Burnham’s Makerfield seat, told The MediaRadio 4 she did not believe a leadership contest was necessary and backed his plans to set up an No 10 north in Manchester.

“I think there will be two things that will be different under Andy Burnham,” Nandy told the Today programme.

“The first is that it will be faster and bolder, and he’s willing to think very differently about how we deliver that change.

“Number 10 in the North has attracted a lot of interest but that really is about shifting the centre of gravity in the country so that all parts of the country are seen and heard and are able to contribute.

“The second thing that will be different is we will wear our hearts on our sleeves more.”

Nandy stood to be Labour leader in 2020, losing out to Sir Keir Starmer.

She was thought to have ambitions to stand again before throwing her weight behind the former Greater Manchester mayor, who is a longstanding friend and ally.

She statedshe had not yet been told she would be continuing as culture secretary under Burnham or offered another job and neither had anybody else in Sir Keir’s cabinet.

“He [Burnham] has not offered any jobs to anybody and I firmly believe that’s the right thing to do.”

In her Today interview, she also defended Labour’s record in office over the past two years, including cutting NHS waiting times and opening up opportunities for young people.

She statedthis had been achieved by Sir Keir under very difficult circumstances – but admitted that the government’s work had not resonated with the public.

This, she argued, was why Burnham was currentlytaking over, adding that a leadership contest was not necessary because Labour was putting the country first.

“If I’m honest, no I don’t think that a contest would have been helpful at this moment.

“I feel very much in my constituency in Wigan, and we heard it in the neighbouring constituency of Makerfield in the recent by-election, people have put up with a lot for a long time.

“They need things to change, they voted for that change two years ago, they’ve sent us a clear message that they want that change to be bolder, they want it to be faster.”

Burnham had set out his vision for the future of the party in his speech at the People’s History Museum in Manchester last Monday, and what she called an overwhelming number of Labour MPs had backed that direction of travel.