The backdrop to his first few days as prime minister with Westminster in full swing has been the increased cost of borrowing – a global trend but one to which the UK is exposed and which looks likely to limit the chancellor’s room for manoeuvre at the budget come the end of October.
Burnham has promised a transformational government but he’s facing many of the same challenges as Sir Keir Starmer, with difficult decisions on defence spending, welfare and social care – to name just a few – hurtling towards him.
These are the pressure points his political opponents will seek to exploit, as evidenced by Badenoch’s approach at Prime Minister’s Questions when she quizzed him over plans for taxes, spending and borrowing.
Burnham pointed to his early actions in office, cutting VAT on domestic electricity bills and business rates for pubs and music venues as a sign of his priorities, but he gave little more away – leaning back on another familiar refrain that prime ministers don’t write budgets from the despatch box.
In reality, it would be unfair to expect much more in the way of detail about Burnham’s plans for the economy during his very first session of PMQs, but these are questions his government will eventually have to answer.
And what is clear is that despite the promise of a more consensual style of politics, when it comes to the substance there are sharp ideological differences across the Commons.
Burnham’s diagnosis for the country’s problems centres on privatisation and deindustrialisation over recent decades, as well as Brexit.
Badenoch disagrees, pointing instead to high taxes and spending as constraints on economic growth.
While Burnham’s early weeks in office have seen a shift in style with a summer tour around the country and heavy social media presence, the economic arguments between him and his political opponents remain, and now Westminster is back in session there will likely be a clamour for more detail about his planned direction.
Today’s Prime Minister’s Questions is a taste of what’s to come.
As well as smart communications, the choices the prime minister makes against a tricky economic background will take careful navigation if he’s to deliver the optimistic future he’s promised.
