Steering Britain in different directions: Andy Burnham and Margaret Thatcher.Photomontage: watson
analysis
Like the Iron Lady once did, the expected new British Prime Minister must find a way out of a desolate situation.
June 26, 2026, 5:10 p.mJune 26, 2026, 5:35 p.m
To clear up any misunderstanding right from the start: Politically, Andy Burnham and Margaret Thatcher live on two different planets. The likely next British Prime Minister explains unequivocally: “This [Thatchers Politik] has given us 40 years of neoliberalism and the banal truth is: this policy has communities like Makerfield [eine Stadt in der Nähe von Manchester] and similar ones caused serious harm.”
The thing that the right-wing populist Thatcher and the left-wing populist Burnham have in common is not their political program, it is that both are faced with an economically and socially desolate situation when they take office.
The Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher.Image: KEYSTONE
Let’s look back: in the second half of the 1970s, Britain committed something like economic suicide. An economy that was nationalized in many areas stagnated and lost its international competitiveness. When the coal workers didn’t strike, their buddies in the steel industry did. The trade unions stuck to traditional working models – the legendary stoker on the electric locomotive – and the Labor Party was in government, but the tone was increasingly set by the “Militants”, Trotskyists with utopian ideas.
The United Kingdom was rightly called “the sick man of Europe” back then. The situation got so worse that the former world power even had to apply for an emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund like an over-indebted banana republic.
The Iron Lady’s neoliberal revolution did not fall from heaven. It had very earthly reasons – and it shaped the UK for decades. It also laid the foundation for Cool Britannia, the social model created by Tony Blair, Thatcher’s successor. When asked what her greatest achievement was, the Iron Lady once answered: Tony Blair.
Blair is also a member of the Labor Party, but he is anything but a wild Trotskyist. He represented very business-friendly and pragmatic policies, similar to his spiritual twin brother Bill Clinton in the USA. This policy can be summarized as follows: the neoliberal deregulation remains, but its fruits are distributed more fairly. This means: London and its financial center are so successful that the profits generated can also be used to renovate the former, run-down industrial cities in the Midlands and the North.
Britannia was cool under him: Tony Blair.Image: keystone
This plan was well underway. Then the financial crisis came in 2008, money became scarce and the government changed. David Cameron, the Conservative Prime Minister, stopped subsidies to poorer areas and introduced a drastic austerity program. Conservative austerity policies ushered in a renewed decline in the United Kingdom. It culminated in Brexit as a result of the anger of betrayed citizens – and worsened the economic misery. This in turn resulted in political chaos. At 10 Downing Street, the home of the Prime Minister, conservative heads of state joined hands.
Today the United Kingdom is once again the “sick man of Europe”. The economy is stagnating, national debt is almost 100 percent of gross domestic product, the national health system – actually the pride of the British – is overwhelmed, the military can no longer be financed, and the welfare state has been bled dry.
The Conservatives’ mismanagement gave the Labor Party a landslide victory around two years ago. With Keir Starmer they also seemed to have the right prime minister in their ranks. Sir Keir had led the party, which had been led into the political desert by Jeremy Corbyn, an anti-Semitic madhead, back onto the path of reason and thus made it capable of governing. But the pragmatic and matter-of-fact Starmer remained unlucky. He failed to give the British anything like hope for an improvement. The United Kingdom is languishing in a state of permanent depression and is politically oriented towards right-wing extremist populists like Nigel Farage.
Announces his resignation: Sir Keir Starmer.Image: keystone
Instilling hope is a core competency of Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Manchester. He is expected to replace Starmer as prime minister soon. He has already submitted his resignation. There is more to Burnham than hope. The former textile city of Manchester was also starving for a long time. It is now the most optimistic English city, with an economy growing twice as fast as the rest of the UK. Manchester has even surpassed London. More people are moving north from the financial metropolis than the other way around.
Spreading hope and confidence is one thing, but nothing will come of it without anchoring it in reality. “After around two decades of disappointment, many people have given up,” says Martin Wolf, chief economist at the Financial Times.
Spread hope: Andy Burnham.Image: keystone
Nobody knows how Burnham plans to clean out the Augenias stable. He will certainly not resort to neoliberal recipes like Thatcher once did, because he is rightly convinced that they have ultimately caused more harm than good. The only thing that is certain is that he will be walking a tightrope. At first glance, the problems seem insurmountable: how to reconcile a stagnant economy, the challenge of AI, a depressed population and a rapprochement with Europe?
Unlike his predecessor, Andy Burnham is a man of charisma and he has great communication skills. How far these abilities will carry him remains to be seen. The Economist warns: “If Mr. Burnham proves he is not up to the task, he will be exposed very quickly and the verdict will be brutal. He has built his career on blaming the Westminster elite. Soon, however, the difficulties will be his.”