Fergus Finlay: Dear Andy Burnham, I've advised many political leaders so here's my advice to you

Be generous, be brave, and do what you believe to be right, even if it makes you unpopular. Good luck

Andy Burnham: I’m not going to talk about the surprises you’ll face — they’ll come thick and fast. I want to say something instead about the qualities you’ll need.

Dear Andy,

It’s a bit of a liberty, I know, calling you by your first name. We’ve never met, and you don’t know me from Adam. But everyone else calls you Andy, and that’s what was on all your posters. It’s a great strength in a campaign, having a first name that’s instantly recognisable and is uniquely yours. 

I insisted on using the late Toddy O’Sullivan’s first name only on his election poster years and years ago in an election in Ireland, and everyone told me I was mad, because that sort of thing had never been done before. But it worked then too.

I’m telling you that because I want you to accept that I know what I’m talking about. I’ve been there over the years — I’ve been a leader, and maybe more to the point I’ve advised leaders. I’ve helped build successful political careers (sometimes when the person involved didn’t know I had anything to do with it), and I’ve helped good and decent people deal with crises. So everything I’m going to tell you is based on hard experience.

You can read a book of course — and one of the best is not so much a book, more a series of articles written largely by a man called Michael Porter. As the effective CEO of Manchester, you may have read it already. It’s called Seven Surprises for New CEOs, and you’ll find it if you need it on the Harvard website. So I’m not going to concentrate on that so much, other than to tell you, everything you will read there is true — and applies to political leadership as well.

For example, as prime minister, you’ll sit on top of a vast, complex and highly skilled structure. You won’t personally drive change in any direction unless the structure responds. And it will only respond to a clear sense of direction and an understood set of priorities. That’s your job. It’s a painstaking and far from flashy way to begin.

In fact it’s boring, isn’t it? But you don’t want to be Boris Johnson or Liz Truss, living in a delusional fantasy where you think the world is going to respond to a click of your fingers. If you can instead create, right from the off, a deep sense of seriousness and purpose about the direction you want to go in, you’ll be off to a much better start.

So I’m not going to talk about the surprises you’ll face — they’ll come thick and fast. I want to say something instead about the qualities you’ll need — and some of those qualities will, properly deployed, have surprises in them for other people. Maybe along the way I could recommend another book —  Team of Rivals — about Abraham Lincoln.

Generosity

Because the first political quality I want to recommend to you is generosity. Your immediate predecessor is a proud man who is deeply hurt, and angry, by what has happened to him. He’s a man of decency and honesty who can’t turn on the telly or open a newspaper without reading reams about how deeply he has failed and how much he is hated.

But he is also a man who has very substantial strengths and a very decent reputation in one area of his premiership. If I were the incoming prime minister of Great Britain I would go to very considerable lengths to seek to persuade Keir Starmer to continue to serve his country as its foreign secretary. 

If I were the incoming prime minister of Great Britain I would go to very considerable lengths to seek to persuade Keir Starmer to continue to serve his country as its foreign secretary. 

If you do read the Lincoln book, you’ll see quickly that Lincoln’s decision to appoint political rivals and even enemies to senior offices of state came to be seen as a mark of his political genius and indeed helped him to win the Civil War. So, it wouldn’t just be the right thing to do, it would make a very powerful statement of character and confidence.

Bravery

The next quality I want to urge on you is bravery. I’ve seen over many years how people arrive into office brave, but the bravery dissipates in the face of advice and sometimes blandishments. So here’s the thing you need to know — and you really need to know this. You don’t just read the file about what happens next — you internalise it until it becomes part of your make-up.

The lesson is a simple one. You are going to be a disappointment to the people who think you’re their saviour now. You can’t help but let them down. Know that now, and know it in your heart.

So if you’re going to disappoint, only do it by doing the things you believe in. If you’re going to be unpopular, be unpopular by doing the things you really believe to be right. 

Everything I’ve read about you suggests you’re not a technocrat but someone who is driven by a specific set of values. That means you’re probably not led by clearly articulated policies but rather by what’s in your gut.

I admire that, but it will only take you so far. Policy matters, but here’s the distinction. Values decide what should be done. Policy figures out how to do it. You need both, but in the right order. 

You’re going to find, though, that all around you there are going to be dire warnings. The bond markets are poised to go wild. The cost of borrowing, the cost of mortgages, could all go through the roof if you take a wrong step.

Look. If you do a Liz Truss and make a mad decision for an irresponsible reason, you’ll deserve the wrath of the financial markets. But if you take a risk for good and defensible reasons, the markets will settle down quickly. So go for something big immediately. Get them used to the idea Great Britain needs to invest now in urgent and important things.

Start with water

If it were me, I’d start with water. British water is in a disgraceful condition throughout the country. A number of private companies saddled with debt and riddled with incompetent management are busily running the system into the ground. 

You should declare as one of your first priorities that you intend to take the companies back into public ownership, with as little compensation as possible to people who have profited from the mess, and then borrow — yes, borrow — to enable a massive capital investment in a clean and safe water supply and in clean rivers and lakes.

The bond markets will hate that, but they will swallow it. And, of course, there are huge and potentially unpopular decisions still to be taken about defence, about healthcare, about foreign aid and immigration. But a bold first start is important.

Make no mistake. You will face massive opposition within your own country. There are malign forces in the media and in politics determined to do you in. But there will also be massive support, high expectations and huge hope. How you turn hope into reality will make or break you. 

Outside the UK, the rest of the world wants to see you do well, because it’s actually important to all of us — not least in terms of relations between our two little islands. 

So good luck. You need it and you deserve it.