Lowri Griffiths on the PM’s tearful Downing Street exit, Andy Burnham’s arrival by train, and why none of this changes the Northern line
By Lowri Griffiths, Big Smoke Broke
The PM Cried. London Shrugged. The Tube Was Still Delayed.
I was sitting in my favourite coffee shop in Kentish Town on Monday morning when Keir Starmer walked out of Downing Street and cried in front of a microphone. My oat flat white arrived at the same moment. I watched the speech on my phone. I drank the coffee. Both things happened in about the same amount of time, and at the end of both I was marginally warmer and not noticeably better governed than before.
Starmer did the right thing, which is the polite British way of saying he did the thing everyone had already decided he would do after months of speculation that he said wasn’t happening until it clearly was. “The question my party is asking,” he said, “is whether I am best placed to lead us into the next general election. I have heard the answer of my parliamentary party to that question, and I accept that answer with good grace.” This is the most dignified possible way of saying that your colleagues have spent weeks texting journalists to say you need to go and you’ve finally read enough WhatsApp screenshots to agree with them.
Andy Burnham: The Man From Manchester Arrives by Train
Andy Burnham, the former Greater Manchester Mayor and newly elected MP for Makerfield, arrived in London by train on Monday afternoon to be sworn into Parliament, making him eligible to run for the Labour leadership, which he had made somewhat clear was his intention by, as analysts politely noted, “entering Parliament with the explicit intention of challenging Starmer.” The train detail was reported by several outlets, which is either because journalists were at Manchester Piccadilly and had nothing else to do, or because the decision to arrive by train rather than being driven down the M6 is itself politically significant messaging from a northern Labour politician who wants to be seen as a man of the people rather than a man of the car park.
Burnham beat Reform UK in Makerfield decisively, which is apparently the crucial credential for Labour leadership in 2026: not having run a government, not having particular policy expertise, but having beaten Nigel Farage’s party in a place where they had recently won all the local council seats. This is the political moment we are in. The person who demonstrates they can stop Reform from winning in post-industrial northern England is the person Labour wants in Downing Street. Burnham is that person this week. Whether he is still that person when the actual governing starts is a different question for a different month.
North London’s Specific Relationship to National Politics
From North London’s perspective — from Kentish Town specifically, where I am paying 2,100 a month for a flat that my grandparents’ generation would have bought for the equivalent of two years’ wages — the central drama of national politics has always been somewhat abstract. The Conservatives spent 14 years cutting public services. Labour spent two years not quite fixing them as quickly as promised. Reform UK is rising on a platform that includes positions that would, if implemented, make my neighbourhood considerably less interesting and considerably less diverse, both of which I consider bad things.
The Northern line was delayed this morning because of a signalling fault at Morden. This is unrelated to the Labour leadership contest except insofar as both represent systems under strain that require sustained investment rather than management changes to fix. Burnham, who ran Greater Manchester’s transit system and expanded it, has a better transport record than Starmer, who ran the Crown Prosecution Service and had fewer opportunities to express opinions about signalling faults. This may or may not be relevant to the challenge of governing a country of 67 million people facing energy price inflation, Reform UK’s rise, and three years remaining until the next general election.
The coffee shop in Kentish Town is still there. The Northern line was eventually fixed. Burnham was sworn into Parliament. Starmer is still caretaker PM until the leadership contest completes. The geometry of national politics has rearranged itself. Whether it rearranges in a direction that meaningfully improves conditions in the part of London I inhabit is a question that I will be watching with the specific attention of someone who writes about North London and pays North London rent and would prefer, on balance, that the government gets better at the things that affect both.
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What North London Requires of Its Representatives
The question that North London voters — in Kentish Town, in Camden, in Islington, in Hornsey — are asking of whoever leads Labour next is not abstract. It is specific to the conditions of life in the part of the city they inhabit: the housing costs that consume above-average proportions of above-average salaries, the public transport that works well enough when it works and is miserable when it doesn’t, the NHS waiting times that feel longer despite the government’s investment narrative, and the specific cost-of-living squeeze that makes a city full of interesting people in stimulating jobs feel, at the monthly bank statement moment, like a question about whether the interesting stimulating life is sustainable at its current price. Burnham’s northern credibility is real. His relevance to North London’s specific concerns remains to be demonstrated. The coffee shop in Kentish Town will be watching. The Northern line will be running, or not, regardless of who leads Labour. Both things will be true simultaneously, as they always are.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com
