That's politics

I’m fascinated by this whole Andy Burnham psychodrama that’s playing out across the 24-hour news channel chirons, in the same way that I’m sure many other people throughout the country just aren’t.

An average voter somewhere in the West Midlands will wake up one day soon, realise there’s a new prime minister and not have a clue why. Not that anyone who has actually been following the news will have a clue why either, it just is what it is, the circle of public life. Knock knock, Keir who, that’s politics.

It’s all much like the old days, which is a cheery thought. If this was 400 years ago it would be painted in the history books as some sort of dreary middle class (except that dinner exist) civil war-slash-coup, Burnham marching on London with his team of admin support and someone shooting video for his socials, when in reality he’s going to jump on an early Avanti West Coast and claim it on expenses.

There’s a level of entitlement to Burnham’s putsch that I find mildly staggering (I try not to stagger as a rule), asking the actual prime minister of a country to hand in his notice while he waits to see what platform he’s supposed to be leaving from. He’s probably deciding his cabinet and a few headline policy announcements while deciding whether or not to get a sandwich from Upper Crust now or wait for later. Though if the current prime minister (at the time of writing) had invested a similar amount of time preparing for government we might not be in this mess.

But here comes our white knight on his trusty steed (an Addison Lee Volkswagen) to save us, having vanquished the racist foe up north. Part of the reason that Andy Burnham and Nigel Farage are able to be so popular is that they are frontline politicians who are untainted by any actual frontline political experience. Sure, Burnham was culture secretary, but back in the days when you just turned up at the Baftas and kept your head down the rest of the year.

Fair play to him on his regional polling win though, it’s exciting for him. First Wigan, then the world. I do get vastly irritated though by this notion of ‘tactical voting’ that people talking about at endless length on the news. As if we have to stay with whatever party the polling algorithms have allocated us. The whole point of an election is trying to persuade people to put an X next to your name, and the moment for doing that is in the polling booth – anything before or after is just nonsense.

Unless you’re the actual politician – as the (current) prime minister has learned, it’s one thing trying to persuade people, but it’s the next little bit that’s even harder.