Burnham's Inheritance

Five of the biggest challenges facing the new prime minister

Four things determine whether prime ministers are successful. Three are about them. Do they have the requisite character and public presence for the job? Is there a clear guiding purpose to their administration? Can they put together a team to run a functioning operation? The fourth is context. What are the specific challenges they face and are they prepared to meet them?

There’s been a lot of speculation about Burnham’s character and his likely appointments to senior roles. I’ve written about some of the ideas that could provide a clearer animating purpose to his government than Keir Starmer managed. It’s time to turn to the context.

It is, of course, not possible to predict all the events that will shape Burnham’s premiership. In summer 2019 no one though Boris Johnson’s time in office would be defined by a global pandemic. Equally there are some challenges so broad and universal that they should be on the list for any leader around the globe: climate change; the threats and opportunities of AI; foreign policy in an increasingly multipolar and transactional world; and how to secure economic growth given our complex, volatile and interconnected financial system.

But I want to focus on a set of more tightly defined problems that we know are coming over the next year, and will lead to the prime minister having to make a series of difficult trade-offs. They are a mostly a consequence of decisions already taken, or delayed, by this government. And how Burnham manages them will tell us a lot about whether he will outperform his recent predecessors.