Prime Minister Andy Burnham - ‘I’m a better politician for having failed.’

Summary

---

How To Fail With Elizabeth Day

Episode: Prime Minister Andy Burnham – ‘I’m a better politician for having failed.’

Date: August 5, 2026

---

Episode Overview

Elizabeth Day welcomes Andy Burnham—the first sitting UK Prime Minister to appear on How To Fail—for an honest, insightful conversation about the life lessons shaped by his personal and political failures. Burnham, reflecting on his upbringing, career setbacks, and family experiences, explores why his failures have been fundamental to his growth as a politician, leader, and person. The episode is rich with candid anecdotes, reflections on imposter syndrome, and Burnham’s vision for a fairer, more hopeful Britain.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. On Arriving at the Top—and Never ‘Arriving’

• Imposter Syndrome and Motivation
  • Burnham admits a continual sense of not ‘arriving’, always feeling the need to prove himself.
  • “I never feel like that in any job. And I get the sense that if you do, you're not in the right place frame of mind. Because you've always got to prove yourself, haven't you?... I always carry that sense with me. I don't think that will ever change.” – Andy Burnham (03:48–04:05)
  • Day praises this as the opposite of entitlement, something needed in politics (04:05).
  • Burnham reveals the imposter syndrome is widespread for those from working-class backgrounds, and describes learning to be publicly authentic, especially post-Westminster.

2. Faith, Upbringing and Authenticity

• Catholic Roots and Political Outlook

  • Burnham discusses being the first Catholic Prime Minister and how Catholic social teaching shaped his sense of public duty and empathy.
  • “When I was at school... Catholic social teaching... was a very big thing in my early days. ... I absorbed all of that and couldn't and still don't actually differentiate faith and politics particularly. I think they're all part of the same thing. How do you live your life? How do you treat other people?” – Andy Burnham (07:20–08:23)
  • The hosts and Burnham share a light-hearted moment on the irreverence of the Catholic experience—and sneaking communion wine (08:23).

• The Influence of English at Cambridge

  • Burnham’s English studies at Cambridge were initially questioned by his father but proved formative for his political communication.
  • Tony Harrison's poetry, in a northern accent, and the Arthur Scargill quote on the "power to master words" were especially influential (09:09–10:52).
  • “Doing English is intensely political. It's about your power to get your point over and communicate well.” – Andy Burnham (10:21)

3. Learning from Political Failure

• Labour Leadership Bids (2010 & 2015)

  • Burnham explains how two failed bids for Labour leader taught him more than success could have. The experience forced self-reflection, authenticity, and a focus on ‘place first, not party first’ (11:20–13:15).
  • “I became a much better politician in the end for not getting the position at that time, because I probably hadn't really thought things through enough. And the Westminster world puts you on a certain track and makes you think a certain way, speak a certain way.... It would be true of anybody in any organization, isn't it? ... The fact of losing in 2015 and then coming into this role here made me a million times better as a politician.” – Andy Burnham (11:20–13:15)
  • Day probes the pain of being the “front runner” in 2015 (14:44–17:22). Burnham details the difficulty of leading from the front and how listening to “bad advice” paralyzed him.

• Maintaining Relationships in Politics

  • Burnham reflects on how personal animosities are avoided, referencing working relationships with both Ed Miliband and Keir Starmer (17:22–19:15).
  • “In the end it's more than you, isn't it? You're kind of standing forward to represent a strain of thinking... So yes, it can get difficult... The question is... can you find a way of not making them the product of animosity? And I've never done that.” – Andy Burnham (17:46)

4. Career Setbacks and the North-South Divide

• Failure to Find Work at Home

  • After Cambridge, Burnham struggled to find paid work locally, feeling the pressure to move south and regarding it as a personal failure (24:10–27:25).
  • “Here was me sort of trying to find a foothold in journalism and there was just nothing. My first job came in November 1991, but it was unpaid... And in the end, I'd said to everybody who knew me that I wouldn't be moving to London, but I then did.” – Andy Burnham (24:10–27:25)
  • The theme of ‘home’—as both safety and authenticity—runs through Burnham’s life and career (28:08–31:20).

• Vision for a United, Hopeful Britain

  • Burnham links his personal sense of ‘place’ to his political mission: fixing the UK’s deep-rooted divides so every community feels cared for by government (31:20–32:07).
  • He commits to restoring hope, promising to “make Whitehall look after Middleton as much as it looks after Marlow” (28:08).

• “If there's a theme that I want to define my time as Prime Minister, it's making this country not feel like that, not have a sense that some areas are favored and some are not.” – Andy Burnham (29:34)

5. The Challenge of Social Care: His Greatest Political Failure

• Broken System and Personal Impact
  • Burnham calls social care policy a personal and collective political failure, recalling his campaign for a national care service and the dereliction of duty by generations of politicians (35:59–38:19, 40:32–43:12).
  • “I feel that my generation of politicians is guilty of a shameful dereliction of duty, political cowardice of the worst kind in saying that this issue is too difficult and we're not going to touch it, we're just going to leave it. ... What a failure that is.” – Andy Burnham (35:59–38:19)
  • Despite the complexity and stress, Burnham insists, “the status quo is the worst of all worlds... People are already paying, so the money is going in. It's just being done in the most unfair way imaginable.” (40:47–43:12)
  • His personal experiences—his father’s Alzheimer’s, his mother’s role as a carer—inform his political drive for reform.

6. The Personal Power of Politics

• Family, Values, and Mentorship
  • Burnham moves powerfully from policy to personal, sharing an emotional story of his father’s care home pausing to watch him become Prime Minister on TV, possibly recognizing his son in that moment (45:04–46:17).
  • He pays tribute to care workers and the value they bring to society (46:24–47:10).
  • Burnham recalls guidance from mentor Paul Goggins: “Give your power to people who've got none. That's why you're here.” (48:16–50:19)
  • Stresses that the personal is the political and that fusing compassion and action is essential for real leadership.

7. Notable Quotes & Lighthearted Moments

• “Life's a journey and mine certainly has been, and you have to be prepared to understand why... How do I make myself better from that experience?” – Andy Burnham on why he chose to appear on ‘How To Fail’. (05:42)
• “Answer the F**ing question.”* – Marie France, relaying her blunt real-time text feedback to Burnham’s political interviews (23:24)
• “Any Catholic would know. We all have that gene within us.” – Marie France, on sneaking communion wine (08:29)
• “You're my first ever Prime Minister on How To Fail and I am incredibly grateful. We've got close in the past, but most politicians run scared of doing a podcast with the word fail in the title.” – Elizabeth Day (05:20)
• “Are your eyelashes real?” – Elizabeth Day, referencing Burnham’s famous features in closing (50:19–50:49)

---

Timestamps for Major Segments

• Introduction, Burnham’s Background: 01:26–03:29
• Imposter Syndrome & Motivation: 03:39–05:20
• Catholicism & Childhood: 07:00–08:23
• English Degree & Power of Words: 09:05–10:52
• Labour Leadership Failures: 11:20–14:44
• Authenticity in Politics, Threat of Westminster: 13:20–14:44
• Hillsborough, Political Conviction: 14:55–17:22
• Maintaining Political Friendships: 17:22–19:15
• Career Struggles Post-Cambridge: 24:10–27:25
• What ‘Home’ Means: 28:08–31:20
• Vision for National Unity & Hope: 31:20–35:59
• Social Care as Political Failure: 35:59–43:12
• Personal Family Stories (Alzheimer’s): 43:12–46:24
• The Power of Personal Politics, Mentorship: 48:06–50:19
• Lighthearted Closing: 50:19–50:49

---

Memorable Moments

• Burnham’s emotional recounting of his father’s carers gathering him to watch the new PM on TV—“we thought he knew”—brought both laughter and tears. (45:04–45:59)
• Marie France’s no-nonsense guidance, and her Dutch honesty, as a counterpoint to Burnham’s political language (21:48–23:50).
• The recurring theme of Manchester pride and the determination to bring a new, more inclusive politics to Westminster.

---

Conclusion

Elizabeth Day’s conversation with Prime Minister Andy Burnham illuminates how personal and political failures can become a deep source of resilience, authenticity, and vision. Burnham’s openness—about everything from electoral losses to family heartbreak—offers listeners a rare insight into the humanity behind political leadership. The episode closes with laughter about eyelashes, but the resonance of Burnham’s message—of hope, unity, and caring for others—lingers far beyond.

---

Transcript

[Elizabeth Day]

Hello and welcome to how to Fail with Me, Elizabeth Day. This is a very, very special episode. We don't often get politicians who are willing to admit to their mistakes and talk about failure, but today we have

[Podcast Host or Advertiser]

someone in an incredibly unique position.

[Elizabeth Day]

Before we get started on this conversation, please do remember to like, follow and

[Podcast Host or Advertiser]

subscribe so that you never miss a single episode.

[Carvana Advertiser 1]

Evening Buyer's Remorse Buy a new car. I'll be moving in. Let's get.

[Carvana Advertiser 2]

Sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana.

[Carvana Advertiser 1]

You what?

[Carvana Advertiser 2]

Yeah, great price. I even have seven days to love it or return it. So there's no, no, no Buyer's Remorse. More like Buyers rejoice.

[Carvana Advertiser 1]

I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations. I mean it.

[Carvana Advertiser 2]

Buyers rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana. Limitations and exclusions may apply.

[Podcast Host or Advertiser]

See our 7 day return [e-mail] this

[AG1 Advertiser]

one goes out to all my ladies, all my multitasking mamas who need energy to show up at work, and all my empty nest explorers who need a little gut health support for the journey ahead. AG1 is the daily health drink designed to support whole body health with over 75 essential nutrients and pre and probiotics so you can make the most of every day and every decade. Learn [e-mail] in his first speech as

[Elizabeth Day]

Prime Minister, outside number 10 Downing Street, Andy Burnham promised a new politics of hope, saying it was time to invest in people's success rather than paying for failure. It was a line that could just as accurately reflect his personal trajectory. Born in Liverpool, raised in Cheshire and forged in Manchester, Burnham is the middle of three sons. His father, Roy, was a telephone engineer, his mother, Eileen, a GPS receptionist. He joined the Labour Party as a teenager after watching Boys from the Black Stuff on TV and encouraged by his English teacher, applied for a place at Cambridge. He was rejected from his first interview,

[Podcast Host or Advertiser]

but was later picked out of the

[Elizabeth Day]

pool by Fitzwilliam College, where he met

[Podcast Host or Advertiser]

his wife, Mary France and graduated with

[Elizabeth Day]

a 2:1 in English. Burnham briefly became a journalist on illustrious titles such as container management. But his heart was always with politics. He got hired first as a researcher before being elected in 2001 under Tony Blair, later becoming a cabinet minister for Gordon Brown and going on to serve

[Podcast Host or Advertiser]

in the Shadow Cabinet under Ed Miliband

[Elizabeth Day]

and Jeremy Corbyn for six years. Burnham ran two failed leadership bids himself before standing down from Parliament and being

[Podcast Host or Advertiser]

elected mayor of Greater Manchester with 63% of the vote.

[Elizabeth Day]

By any metric, Burnham made a success of his mayoral terms Becoming so popular, he was nicknamed King of the North.

[Podcast Host or Advertiser]

He probably prefers that label to Kemi

[Elizabeth Day]

Badenoch's jibe that he was nothing more than a pair of eyelashes and a black T shirt. Despite once claiming that Westminster makes a fraud of good people, Burnham is now our seventh prime minister in 10 years,

[Podcast Host or Advertiser]

having won a decisive by election in

[Elizabeth Day]

Makerfield and having received nominations from 94% of Labour MPs in an unopposed leadership contest. So, third time lucky.

[Podcast Host or Advertiser]

Still, as Burnham said in 2022, I never relax.

[Elizabeth Day]

I always feel I'm having to prove myself. There's never a sense of, I'm here, I've arrived. Prime Minister, welcome to How To Fail.

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

Thank you so much, Elizabeth. That was a very fair introduction.

[Elizabeth Day]

I'm glad. But surely, is there a sense that you have now arrived?

[Andy Burnham]

I never feel like that in any job. And I get the sense that if you do, you're not in the right place frame of mind. Because you've always got to prove yourself, haven't you? You've always got to challenge yourself to prove people who doubt you wrong. I mean, I always carry that sense with me. I don't think that will ever change.

[Elizabeth Day]

Well, I think that's the opposite of entitlement, which is precisely what we need right now.

[Andy Burnham]

Yeah, there's not much entitlement here. I've always had a bit of that imposter syndrome that many people from these parts and other parts of the country carry with them. You know, you walk in somewhere, your first job or going to university, as you said, always struggled and waited for the tap on the shoulder and it took a long time for that sense to leave me. But eventually you get beyond that. But even now, I still have that feeling of, no, I need to show the people who don't think I can do this that I can do this. And I've got that feeling right now

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

in this job, but I've got the

[Andy Burnham]

bit between my teeth. And actually, I go into this job probably differently than anyone before. A bit more like when I went in as Mayor of Greater Manchester, I learned there just to be myself. I knew the city, I knew the people. Right, I'll just be myself in this job. I was free from Westminster and I'm carrying that forward now, back to Westminster to say, you know what, all of you down here with the way you do things and your strange ways, well, I'm going to come in and carry a bit of Manchester back in here and show you there's a better way of doing politics.

[Elizabeth Day]

And it's why we're recording this in number 10 north. So it's a joy to be here for the first time. You are my first ever Prime Minister on how to fail, and I am incredibly grateful. We've got close in the past, but most politicians run scared of doing a podcast with the word fail in the title. Why did you decide to do it?

[Andy Burnham]

Because life's a journey and mine certainly has been, and you have to be prepared to understand why. If you've not succeeded at a particular moment, well, why didn't that happen? And what am I going to do about it? How do I make myself better from that experience? And I've definitely done that throughout my political career because I've always had that degree of self doubt or, you know, am I good enough? But I think that's a healthy thing, actually, and it can make you somebody who is prepared to sort of reflect and learn and come back stronger. I think probably in any war of life, people who do that probably are more likely to stick around and, you know, be there for the longer haul.

[Carvana Advertiser 1]

Yeah.

[Andy Burnham]

Not everything has gone right in my journey, but I've always, you know, taken the moment to think, to challenge myself and, you know, really kind of go through it and then understand it and then come back that little bit better.

[Elizabeth Day]

Love to hear it. Now, not only are you the first Prime Minister who's come on how to Fail, you are also the first Prime Minister who did English at university.

[Andy Burnham]

First. First ever.

[Podcast Host or Advertiser]

I don't know, I.

[Elizabeth Day]

You are, and I believe, the first Catholic Prime Minister.

[Andy Burnham]

Yes, I think that is true. Boris may have been baptized, but never was raised in that way, but I was.

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

I'm not going to claim that I'm

[Andy Burnham]

the most observant, but once you are one, you're always one.

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

When it comes to Catholicism, you can't

[Andy Burnham]

shake it out of you. And I definitely would be in that space. And it shaped my. You know, when I was at school, I'm old enough to remember something called the catechism. Catholic social teaching. You know, it was a very big thing in my early days. I was an altar boy and I used to have to put the tape on every week at Mass on Sunday from Archbishop Derek Warlock, who was a big figure in the Catholic Church here in the Northwest. And he would be speaking very much about the 80s and some of the challenges in the inner cities, Toxteth, Moss side, and then the miners strike and all of that. I absorbed all of that and couldn't and still don't actually differentiate faith and politics particularly. I think they're all Part of the same thing. How do you live your life? How do you treat other people? Do you have a care for people at the heart of everything that you do? And if you do, I think basically you're going to be on the right lines. So I've tried to stick to that approach.

[Elizabeth Day]

Did you ever sneak any communion wine?

[Andy Burnham]

Definitely.

[Elizabeth Day]

Did you?

[Carvana Advertiser 2]

Yeah.

[Andy Burnham]

You know what we're like.

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

Any Catholic would know. We all have that gene within us, you know. Yeah.

[Andy Burnham]

The Catholic Church, I don't know, it kind of changes through time. But the Catholic Church in my youth was always quite irreverent, quite Irish in

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

terms of the priests. We used to come into contact with

[Andy Burnham]

a big emphasis on humor, and it became a bit more judgmental, I think, in the 2000s. And I was a big supporter of Pope Francis because I thought he brought back the humour, the humanity, the slightly live and let live approach that had been lost by his predecessor.

[Elizabeth Day]

What about your English degree? Has that shaped your political outlook?

[Andy Burnham]

I think so. I had a job to persuade my dad that I should study English at Cambridge. He kept saying, well, what are you going to do with a job like that? As you said at the start, he came from an engineering. And I kept saying to him, no, I like it. And then I found in a poem I got really interested in by a poet called Tony Harrison, who was a poet from Leeds, and he was quite controversial at the time. In the 80s, he wrote a poem called V that was on Channel four and it was full of swear words. But to me, my English teacher said, you'll like this because you'll relate to it. And I put this video on of his poem and I realized for the first time in my life that poetry could have a northern accent. And that was quite a thing. But I kept pointing my dad back to the quotation at the start of V, from Arthur Scargill, no less. And this quote said, my dad reads the dictionary every day. He says, your life depends upon your power to master words. So I went to my dad, said,

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

look, he liked Arthur Scargill. Look, Arthur Scargill says this.

[Andy Burnham]

Doing English is intensely political. It's about your power to get your point over and communicate well. And I like to think that even though, sadly, I can't have this conversation with him now, I'd like to think

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

that even now he would accept that

[Andy Burnham]

that was a good choice. Because I think a power over language and an ability to use language to make your point, I think has probably helped me quite a bit in my political career. And getting the emotion into what you do and what you say and the connection with people.

[Elizabeth Day]

We'll talk more about your dad who has Alzheimer's later, as it pertains to one of your failures. But let's get into your first failure, which is your failed runs at Labour leadership. I'm so glad that you are going to talk about this. As we said at the beginning, so much of failure is learning. It's data acquisition about what to do differently. Do you think now you are Prime Minister, despite those failed leadership runs, or because of them?

[Andy Burnham]

Probably because of them, I became a much better politician in the end for not getting the position at that time, because I probably hadn't really thought things through enough. And the Westminster world puts you on a certain track and makes you think a certain way, speak a certain way. Even you quoted that thing that I said about Westminster making a fraud out of good people. But it does. You've got the whips telling you what to say in interviews and how to vote in the lobbies. And it's not about being your authentic self. You know, it kind of takes people away from that and makes them appear something that they're not. And it took me to lose in 2015, decide to come back home here and stand to be the first mayor of Greater Manchester and then really challenge myself about, well, what do I. When I'm thinking and speaking for myself without any party line, because I didn't. I was quite clear when I left I was going to do this myself, place first, not party first, do what's right for here. It really strengthened me, if you like, as a. As a politician. And it would be true of anybody in any organization, isn't it? You know, people at work can think, oh, do I just do what they. The official line will be this and do I just stick to that, or do I stand outside of it and say, oh, you know what? I don't agree with that. I'm going to do something slightly differently. I think anyone who wants to go towards a leadership position in an organization has to hit that moment in their life where they don't just look up and do what they think is expected, but actually then develop the ability to say, you know what, what they're doing isn't right. I'm going to do it this way. And the fact of losing in 2015 and then coming into this role here made me a million times better as a politician.

[Elizabeth Day]

Are you worried you might lose it again under the pressure of being Prime Minister?

[Andy Burnham]

Yes.

[Elizabeth Day]

Okay.

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

Yes, definitely.

[Andy Burnham]

Because the world down there has that effect. It has norms and ways of working, and it expects people to follow that. And anyone who challenges it is seen as an outsider or gets sneering coverage and gets denigrated in one way or another. So, yes is the answer. But I'm just going to do this job exactly as I've done the job I did here in Manchester. I've decided, actually, and maybe this has come over in the early days, I don't know. I hope so. I'm just being myself. I've relaxed into it. The only way to do it, as far as I can tell, is to go into it as yourself, come over as yourself, explain to people what you're doing and why you're doing it, and then I think you've got a chance of people connecting with it and saying, okay, well, I'll give this a chance. If you're going to go in and do the Westminster thing, then, well, there'll soon be an eighth in 11 years if we're not careful. I don't want that obviously to happen. I want to come in and if I can give the country something to tune into, to believe in, to get some hope going and hopefully then some stability that might come from that.

[Elizabeth Day]

You're focusing on the 2015 leadership bid, but there was a previous one in 2010. Was the 2015 one more painful when you lost to Jeremy Corbyn? Is that why there's this particular focus on it?

[Andy Burnham]

Yeah. I was very much the outsider and the underdog in the 2010 election, and actually it probably went fairly well for me because David and Ed Miller Band were the sort of, you know, took all of the story of that contest, but it allowed me a space to go over the line of standing in a leadership election, which is a hard thing to do, but with a bit more freedom to just speak to the things I thought were important. So I look back on that as having really helped me, and I don't consider it particularly a failure because, you know, it moved me forward in terms of how I was as a politician. It was just after, I would say, the biggest turning point in my political career, which was when, as Culture Secretary, I went to ANFIELD on the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster. And I'd had to make a choice that day whether I was going to toe the government line or be true to what I knew and the people I'd grown up with, which was that there was a major injustice and the whole city of Liverpool had been subject of a slur campaign for 20 years, orchestrated from the highest levels of the land. And I knew that and I had to decide on that day was I going to toe the line of the government I was in or was I going to challenge it? And I did challenge it and things started to change on that issue. But it also then changed me as a person and a politician because I realized that in the end I hadn't come in to tow the lines of people in London that I just couldn't possibly. The 19 year old me could never have agreed with. You know, I remember saying at the time, if I wasn't the minister at Anfield on that day, I would have been shouting at the minister. And I knew that I had to reconcile that thing inside of me. I did it in hopefully the right way. And then I went into that leadership election with a bit of that outsider energy and, and I think I kind of learned a lot then. But that's why 2015 was so painful, because I'd become the front runner by the time that leadership election came around. And oh my goodness, in life when you're the front runner for anything, it just, I don't know, it's hard. You're in a more difficult position in a strange way, when all the eyes are on you and you're, I don't know, doing what you think everybody wants you to do, you're listening to advice that you really should reject. And definitely that was me in 2015.

[Elizabeth Day]

How difficult is it to maintain friendships in politics? So you mentioned there that you stood Against Edmillaband in 2010, he's now serving as your Foreign Secretary. Presumably you had to have a really honest and frank conversation with Keir Starmer when you announced you were going to stand and make a field. How does one maintain these friendships? Or do you?

[Andy Burnham]

I do, broadly, because I, I don't thrive on personal campaigns against people. I've never done my politics like that. But in the end it's more than you, isn't it? You're kind of standing forward to represent a strain of thinking or opinion within the party, to give a voice to more people than you, because people are not feeling represented. So yes, it can get difficult in terms of personal relationships in politics that will always be baked in part and parcel of politics. The question is, when those difficulties arise and those tensions come up, can you find a way of not making them the product of animosity or really rancorous sort of relationships? And I've never done that. It was hard earlier this year when I was blocked in terms of standing for the Gorton and Denton by election. But I will always say what I thought about that, but then I carried on working and did events with Keir Starmer after that. So politics, people in politics have to recognize that when things happen, they are not necessarily personal. They happen because the political moods of the times are shaping things and people have to accept that sometimes you're on the wrong side of that thinking and those moods. And I've had to do that in my political career and we all have to do that at times.

[Podcast Host or Advertiser]

If you know me, you'll know I love reality tv. I find it's great escapism and just the best way to take my mind off work and chill out. My favourite thing to do after a particularly busy period is to position myself on the sofa with my lovely cat Huxley and watch the Real Housewives. Something that makes this ritual even more enticing is a Lola's blanket. It's crafted with ultra soft luxury faux fur and a signature four way stretch that sets it apart. What's more, it's machine washable, which is crucial with Huxley around. He does like to moult, bless him. Double hemmed for durability and stays flawless. No pilling, no shedding. Even after repeated washes, it actually elevates the space where other blankets might make a sofa or room feel scruffy. This makes my home feel cozy and curated. For a limited time, our listeners can get 40% off select Lola blankets products with code howtofail at checkout. Just head to lolablankets.com and use code howtofail to get 40% off your order. After your purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and let them know we sent you. Wrap yourself in luxury with Lola Blankets.

[AG1 Advertiser]

Best thing that's ever happened to you financially. Go easy.

[Carvana Advertiser 3]

Sold my car on Carvana. Amazing offer, really.

[AG1 Advertiser]

I hit 200 on a scratcher.

[Carvana Advertiser 3]

Did the scratcher come to your house and hand you a check? No. How many scratchers did you hit to get that? I hit a button on Carvana.com once.

[AG1 Advertiser]

Okay, that's fair.

[Carvana Advertiser 3]

It's like the lottery, except you always win.

[AG1 Advertiser]

Not like the lottery at all actually.

[Carvana Advertiser 3]

Exactly. Inexplicably good offers worth bragging about. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply.

[AG1 Advertiser]

This one goes out to all my ladies. All my multitasking mamas who need energy to show up at work and at home. All my empty nest explorers who need a little gut health support for the journey ahead. AG1 is the daily health drink designed to support whole body health. With over 75 essential nutrients and pre and probiotics so you can make the most of every day and every decade. Learn [e-mail] what was the conversation like

[Elizabeth Day]

with your wife, Mary France, when you said, listen, I know I've tried twice already to be leader of the Labour Party, but I've got this plan now to become Prime Minister. As a wife myself, I just don't think I could cope with that. I mean, she seems amazing, don't get me wrong, but what have those conversations been like?

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

Oh, goodness me.

[Andy Burnham]

It's why I kind of find this

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

podcast easy, because she's quite blunt in telling me about my failures in past endeavors and she doesn't hold back. And yeah, there's no soft landing there.

[Andy Burnham]

Yeah, she was like, oh, not again.

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

They've told you twice, they don't want you. What are you doing again?

[Andy Burnham]

Yeah, we've always just had honest conversations about it. She knows why I'm in politics and what I'm trying to do. It is about changing the country to make it fairer. I know that sounds a bit sort of corny to say that, but it's exactly why I'm doing it. In the same way that I stood to be mayor of Greater Manchester. So she took some persuading to be honest, because I guess she didn't want to see me go through it all again and then end out on the wrong side at the end of it. But she gives me good advice.

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

The funny thing that everyone laughs at

[Andy Burnham]

in the early stage of my political career, just to give you a flavor of the famous Marie France Van Heel

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

as she now is, I would be

[Andy Burnham]

as a young politician, I'm talking sort of 31, 32, when I was elected in in Lee in the early 2000s. And I'd go in and do these interviews and thinking I'd done really well because I had taken the sort of the handout from the whip's office and I'd done an interview where I'd not strayed from the line at all. And I would come out and I'd turn my phone on the old Nokia mobile phones and first text in block

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

capitals from said person would just say,

[Andy Burnham]

this is what it would read. Answer the F star star star ing question.

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

This one show.

[Elizabeth Day]

That's amazing.

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

Yeah, well, that's the kind of feedback I've had from her. And yeah, it's pretty relevant to this podcast, isn't it?

[Elizabeth Day]

Oh, I hope she listens to this podcast.

[Andy Burnham]

It will be up her street for sure.

[Elizabeth Day]

Great.

[Andy Burnham]

Yeah, she's quite forthright in that she's

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

Dutch and they don't hold back, they're pretty plain speaking. And yeah, I've been on the receiving

[Andy Burnham]

end of a lot of that over the years.

[Elizabeth Day]

Well, talking of your wife brings us to your next failure, where we're going back in time and it's not being able easily to get a job in the north or at home. After you finished at Cambridge, can you talk to me a little bit first about the experience of Cambridge and how it felt to you?

[Andy Burnham]

So I loved my time at Cambridge. I really did loved it. It was when it still is a magical place. That's how I felt about it. It was like a land that was so different to here, you know, a sort of blessed place and I so much wanted to be accepted there. That took a while, but in the end, you know, I did feel that I was. Was accepted and I did well. I mean, I obviously met Marie France, played a lot of football, didn't do the student politics. I enjoyed university life to the full and enjoyed the subject. And I consider myself really lucky to have gone to Cambridge. The chip on the shoulder was there to begin with, but it kind of left really, as I just understood what an amazing place and what it had to offer was. The hard thing was leaving and coming back here. That was the hard thing because you've just had a glimpse of a different world and people who've got different connections in their kind of world and their social life. And I came back here and it was the summer of 1991. There was loads going on in this city at the time. Music wise, it was a great place to be. But the reason the music scene was booming was because it had kind of come through into the empty factories and the empty warehouses, because the rest had gone, the jobs had gone, everything had gone dark. And the music scene was the thing that kind of was coming through to try and pick the place up. And I spent months here, sending CV after cv, trying to find a job and I just could not find anything. And it sticks in my mind because back to that conversation with my dad, he'd tried to persuade me to go to Cambridge because I was initially a bit reluctant, thinking I wouldn't fit in, it would be awful. And he was right that I should have applied. But when he was trying to persuade me, he kept saying, oh, when you graduate, all the doors will fly open, you'll have no problem at all. And it wasn't like that. But people I'd been at university with who had, let's say, well connected parents, they were walking into internships at the Times and. And placements at the BBC and this, that and the other. And here was me sort of trying to find a foothold in journalism and there was just nothing. My first job came in November 1991, but it was unpaid, unpaid reporter on the Middleton Guardian in North Manchester. And that was where I started. And it felt incredibly hard and tough. And in the end, I. I'd said to everybody who knew me that I wouldn't be moving to London, but I then did. And there are so many people of my generation born in the northwest in the 1960s or 70s, for whom that was the reality. If you wanted to get on in life, you had to go south. But it felt like a failure. Felt like a big failure, actually, when I left and took a job on Container management.

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

As you correctly said, it's the reason

[Andy Burnham]

why I've never been on have I Got News for your? Because I just know. They've asked me about 20 times. I just know they would make Container Management the guest publication of the week.

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

When they would read out my old articles, I couldn't bear the humiliation.

[Elizabeth Day]

But those trade publications are absolutely great because I started out as a print journalist and I used to get so many stories from trade publications like that. Yeah, they're great. You mentioned in the wording of this failure, to me, your failure to get a job at home. Home clearly is an extremely resonant concept for you. It's very important. What do you think home means?

[Andy Burnham]

Home means safety, in that you know where you are, you know who you're with, you just feel supported and secure. So I always had that feeling coming home in term time from Cambridge. Home just meant you're back in your comfort zone and you don't have to worry about being somebody you're not. You can just be yourself again. And it's been a bit of a theme of my life, really. When I left Westminster and came back as mayor of Greater Manchester, it felt like being home. I often describe walking in my very first morning as mayor of Greater Manchester at the Greater Master Combined Authority, and all the people were there clapping when I came in. It felt the opposite of going into my first job in a Whitehall department, where you felt half the place was working against you and trying to sort of find you out or trip you up. It felt very different being back here in the city when I left Westminster, and it was definitely part of my university days. I remember being at home, back to Hillsborough and in The Easter of 1989, in my first year, and I was at home and I went to the other semi final on the day of Hillsborough. All my school friends were at the Liverpool game at Hillsborough and then they came back to the same pub where we'd been the night before, traumatized and, you know, some didn't come back at all. And that never left me, that experience, because then when I went to Cambridge, nobody was even talking about it, or to the extent that they were talking about it, they were blaming the Liverpool supporters. And this kind of idea of Britain as two worlds has always been a sort of feeling and a theme in my life. When I went to Cambridge, it felt like I'd gone to a different world and I would come home to feel that feeling of connection again. Or when I worked in London in the 90s, I would come home to go and watch Everton and again I'd feel like I was connected again. And it was true. In my days in Westminster, you know, it was always out of my comfort zone, trying to live in someone else's world and then back here and I don't know, now I kind of feel I've moved beyond some of that feeling as I go into this role. But it's never left me, this feeling that Britain is two worlds. And if there's a theme that I want to define my time as Prime Minister, it's making this country not feel like that, not have a sense that some areas are favored and some are not. And then the feeling that comes to young people growing up in those areas, that's what number 10 north is about. Getting good growth going in every postcode, making Whitehall look after Middleton as much as it looks after Marlow in the south. You know, that's what I'm about, really. I've always been about that and it's why I feel relaxed in this role. I know what I want to do with it. I know what I'm trying to achieve. I know how Britain was when I was growing up. It did feel too much like two worlds, people living parallel lives. And that's what I want to change.

[Elizabeth Day]

Good English degree alliteration there. Middleton, Marlowe.

[Podcast Host or Advertiser]

Appreciate it.

[Andy Burnham]

I struggle for find a place with

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

an M in the south there very quickly.

[Elizabeth Day]

Home is resonant for so many of us and I think that so many people struggle to feel that sense of safety that you so eloquently portray there in the UK at the moment, whether they are the victim of a racist attack, whether they are marginalised because they are a trans person. How are you going to embed this feeling of home? Because I Know, a lot of people felt so let down and angered by Keir Starmer's statement about the island of strangers. And these are knotty and complicated issues, but I imagine that you want to foster a greater sense of safety for those people to feel at home.

[Andy Burnham]

Yeah, absolutely I do. And the answer is quite a simple one. And I started it really on the doorsteps of Makerfield. Bring back hope, bring back a sense of possibility to the country that things aren't in a inevitable decline and that your place isn't shut out of having some good things happen. That I think is the best antidote to the negativity and the hate that we see in places across the uk. Give people a sense that you can do something about the cost of living, you can make people's life better. We can all together feel that things are moving forward. I think we've lost that feeling. I go back to this country at the moment of London 2012. That feeling was there in abundance, wasn't it? You could kind of almost touch it. It was brilliant. And yet over that decade or more since then, it just drained out of the place, didn't it? And who knows? Social media, but also the failure of politicians has a big part in it. Politics just wasn't working, connecting and then that kind of feeling of hopelessness, pessimism seeps in and then you get the division that comes from, from that. So we've been in that place for a long time now as a country and I don't want to be too simplistic about it. It's hard to turn that around. But I am determined in this role to talk about hope, bringing it back, giving people a sense that they're being heard, listened to, we're doing something about it. We can be better. The place where you live can be better. Your kids can have better prospects. It's why I talk about an education system that balances technical education with academic education for too long. Goes back to my theme. This country has appeared as though it's for some people rather than all people or for some places rather than all places. And in education you've got a prime example. And I go back actually to the government. I was connected to the Blair government. We talked about a 50% target of young people going to university. But what did we say to the other 50% of deafening silence there and that I think that approach to politics has been part of the problem. It's not felt like it's for people in all places and that parents will say, okay, they're talking about the Life chances of my kids, not just someone else's kids. And I've really thought about those things over the years and that is the way back to, I think, a more hopeful country where we're not pandering to sentiment that is fostering on social media, but actually we're kind of. You're saying, no, no, I'm going to do the opposite of that. I'm going to stand on your doorstep in Makerfield, I'm going to talk about what I'm going to do, what I'm about, not point scoring against anyone else, what positive things I'm going to do to try and change your lives. Do you know, politics, Elizabeth, just isn't like that. Everyone spends their time pointing fingers, scoring points and no wonder. It drives people mad. But that creates a negativity then, that politicians with more sinister intent sort of feed off that negativity and throw more negativity into the mix and then we end up in a really bad and divided place.

[Elizabeth Day]

Talking of Tony Blair, I heard him say this thing recently, which really struck me that in the political climate at the moment, the sensible people aren't radical enough and the radical people aren't sensible enough. How do you combine this big vision that you have with your stated ambition for more devolution growth in every postcode? Is there a tension there?

[Andy Burnham]

There is, but Tony Blair's right about that. I think radical people do need to be more sensible at times and sensible people need to get out of the sort of incremental change and start talking again about how does politics fix the big things. So social care, you know, we perhaps come on to this. I feel that my generation of politicians is guilty of a shameful dereliction of duty, political cowardice of the worst kind in saying that this issue is too difficult and we're not going to touch it, we're just going to leave it. You know, this is about basic care of fellow human beings and those who are vulnerable and we're saying that politics can't address that. But that's where we got to, and we got to it through that normal behavior of Westminster. When I put forward an idea in 2010 for a national care service that was branded a death tax and Theresa May came forward as, and put forward some propose a dementia tax, that kind of creates a situation where everyone says, oh, well, don't go there. But what a failure that is. What a failure. Thirty years since the Royal Commission on Social Care, barely anything has really changed. In fact, social care has gone backwards. And doesn't that just say Something about how politics has really fallen, if you like. You know, it has to be radical. We'd have never created the NHS if we weren't radical as a country at times. And I think given where we are now, you have to have a degree of radicalism to change it. I've talked about the 40 years since the 80s. I don't think neoliberalism, trickle down economics has been kind to a lot of places across Britain, particularly the places that were the industrial centers of Britain. I think it's been very unkind to those places, actually. You go there now and you feel a sense of decline. The high street isn't what people would want it to be. And sometimes in politics you have to say, I'm going to break out of the kind of consensus and start talking about those things in a different way. And it's what I started to do. But you have to be sensible about it in terms of what solutions do you bring forward and you have to be pragmatic about it.

[Podcast Host or Advertiser]

If you know me, you'll know I love reality tv. I find it's great escapism and just the best way to take my mind off work and chill out. My favourite thing to do after a particularly busy period is to position myself on the sofa with my lovely cat Huxley and watch the Real Housewives. Something that makes this ritual even more enticing is a Lola's blanket. It's crafted with ultra soft luxury, luxury faux fur and a signature four way stretch that sets it apart. What's more, it's machine washable, which is crucial with Huxley around. He does like to moult, bless him. Double hemmed for durability and stays flawless. No pilling, no shedding. Even after repeated washes, it actually elevates the space where other blankets might make a sofa or room feel scruffy. This makes my home feel cosy and curated. For a limited time, our listeners can get 40% off off select Lola blankets products with code howtofail at checkout. Just head to lolablankets.com and use code howtofail to get 40% off your order. After your purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and let them know we sent you. Wrap yourself in luxury with Lola Blankets.

[Carvana Advertiser 1]

Evening Buyer's remorse. Buy a new car. I'll be moving in. Let's get started.

[Carvana Advertiser 2]

Sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana.

[Carvana Advertiser 1]

You what?

[Carvana Advertiser 2]

Yeah, Great price. I even have seven days to love it or return it.

[Carvana Advertiser 1]

So there's no, no, no.

[Carvana Advertiser 2]

Buyer's remorse more like. Buyers rejoice.

[Carvana Advertiser 1]

I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations. I mean it.

[Carvana Advertiser 2]

Buyers rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana. Limitations and exclusions may apply.

[Podcast Host or Advertiser]

See our 7 day return [e-mail]

[AG1 Advertiser]

this one goes out to all my ladies, all my multitasking mamas who need energy to show up and at home, all my empty nest explorers who need a little gut health support for the journey ahead. AG1 is the daily health drink designed to support whole body health with over 75 essential nutrients and pre and probiotics so you can make the most of every day and every decade. Learn [e-mail] I just could never be

[Elizabeth Day]

Prime Minister for multiple reasons, but the stress of trying to find funding to overhaul the social care system, which is your third failure. So let's come onto it now. The stress of that must feel completely overwhelming.

[Andy Burnham]

No, it doesn't. It doesn't. Because the status quo is the worst of all worlds. That's the issue, isn't it? Let's just look at what we've got right now. Millions of people are going without their basic needs being met because the system isn't good enough to meet their basic daily needs. So that's, that's the first thing. Second thing, you have millions of family carers, people like my mum, who try to care for my dad at home, who in the end are actually the main issue we discovered as a family. My mum was sinking under the pressure of trying to make it work when the care system couldn't make it work for her. But that's the reality for so many people in this country as a consequence of broken social care. Then there's the next injustice of having to pay a fortune for this broken care that people get. So they pay a lot of money for a very poor standard of care. And some people, the most unfortunate, those who get, let's say Alzheimer's at an early age, pay with everything down to 23,000 pounds of their savings so they can spend hundreds of thousands of pounds, they can be cleaned out by the whole experience of being unlucky enough to get dementia. You know, the randomness of it. If you've got a cancer, you can get everything paid for and you, but you get dementia, you get absolutely wiped out physically, emotionally, financially. It's just terrible, isn't it?

[Elizabeth Day]

Yeah.

[Andy Burnham]

So I don't get overwhelmed by it, is the point I'm coming to. Because it can't be worse than that, can it? Surely we can make it better than that. People are already paying, so the money is going in. It's just being done in the most unfair way imaginable. It's like American healthcare. The most vulnerable pay with everything. And we're okay with that. In Britain, the home of the National Health Service? Well, I don't think so. And I think if I can get beyond the newspapers who kind of work with the worst point scoring politicians to frighten people about these issues and it's happening now, given I've raised the issue again, if we can get beyond that and we can just put the proposals in front of people, some of them might be quite radical. I think the British public will let us know which one they can accept. And they're actually often quite radical in what they want.

[Elizabeth Day]

Talk to me about your dad, Roy. When did you first start noticing as a family that he was showing signs of Alzheimer's?

[Andy Burnham]

Yeah, this is difficult. I mean, it's just emotional topic for me. But it was a year or two after the pandemic, so. Pandemic was hard for everybody, wasn't it? You know, and it took a toll on older people, my mum and dad, to a degree, just because that contact wasn't there. We all remember that time. And coming out of the pandemic, my dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer. And you hear that and you think, oh, my goodness, we must, you know, we get him into treatment and my brothers and I, we look back at that and we reflect on it because I don't think we knew enough or had thought or had it explained to us enough that the intensive treatment that comes with prostate cancer may in fact have brought on the dementia. I don't think I, you know, with all my background in health, I didn't understand enough the relationship between those two things. So it was shortly after he'd had his prostate cancer treatment. I think it would have been 20, 22 sort of time. I remember sitting with him in his bungalow and he just kept asking me about, could I see something in the trees? And, you know, and, and he was saying he could see shapes in the trees. And I was like, no, it's nothing, Daddy, it's fine. But I remember coming away that day thinking, something has changed. And, yeah, you never forget that.

[Elizabeth Day]

I'm so sorry. One of the terrible cruelties of this situation is that he doesn't know you've become Prime Minister. Is there a picture of you as Prime Minister in his room in his care home?

[Andy Burnham]

Not yet, I don't think. But something wonderful happened last week. So I went into his care home on Sunday. And so for people listening now, because this may have gone out later, this was the Sunday after I'd become Prime Minister, so six days later. And one of the staff said, oh, the manager wants to speak to you before you leave. So I went over and I spoke to her. She said, we all wanted you to know. Have to be careful here. This does make me quite emotional. She said, we all knew kind of what time you might be coming up Downing Street. So we got Roy in his chair and we got the telly right in front of him and six of us stood around him and all said, look, Roy, look, look. And she said, he turned and he had a. He said, momentarily. They said, we thought he knew.

[Elizabeth Day]

Oh, Prime Minister. How moving.

[Andy Burnham]

Well, it was because at the time that they were doing that, I was kind of holding my mum and I was. We were having a sort of chat about him. So the thought of them doing that 200 miles away was like. Yeah, was your mum sorry?

[Elizabeth Day]

No, please don't apologize. All emotion is welcome here. Was your mum the woman you were hugging for a while? Okay, that's beautiful. And how is it?

[Andy Burnham]

I was whispering in her ear about my dad, but then to hear what the staff said. Yeah, I just need to say this. The staff who work in social care, I mean, when are we going as a society to recognize them and what they do? I've seen hundreds of people care for my dad. And when you see someone caring for a relative, you look at that process through new eyes, don't you? You see things you maybe wouldn't have seen before when just it was caring for somebody else. But they're incredible. And include the staff from other countries and overseas. They are incredible what they do. And that was just another example of it, that they thought to do that on that day rather than just leave him in his chair when that was. When that was happening.

[Elizabeth Day]

And how is Eileen Burnham doing? Yeah, redoubtable by all accounts.

[Andy Burnham]

Yeah, not in us.

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

She's not in the Marie France category. Redoubtable. She's in a sort of more mild

[Andy Burnham]

version of that, but no, she's good. I mean, it's been hard road for her in terms of what she's done, but she did an amazing job supporting my dad and then has recovered somewhat because of the arrangement we've now got with the care home, which is great. And she went through the same thing as Mary France, actually, about me going further into this job. But I think in the end, as a family, we always talk these things through and everyone understood what I was doing, why I was doing it. And she absolutely understands as well. And all of my lot, you know, they're all bought into the idea of a country that is kind of fairer to everywhere, more rebalanced, a little north to south. They all believe in that. So they know what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. And again, they're behind it.

[Elizabeth Day]

You've done me the honour of speaking so personally today, and I'm so grateful. Do you think the most powerful politics are personal?

[Andy Burnham]

I go back to that point about faith and me as a child really, you know, reading the Catholic social teaching in the Catechism, I've never really differentiated politics from that. And, you know, the teachings that you hear and, you know, the same thing, you know, love thy neighbor as thyself. You know, all of that just meant to me that, you know, that's kind of basically what you should do, what you're being asked to do. And all religions have their versions of the same thing. So I know some people think it's controversial to say religion and politics shouldn't mix, but they kind of. They are part of the same thing to me. I remember coming into Parliament in that period in the early 2000s, and somebody who was a Greater Mansion MP called Paul Goggins, he was much more Catholic than me in terms of very devout, but he singled me out because he realized we had a shared background and he became something of a mentor to me. And I'll never forget Paul saying to me, he said, andy, in here there are just so many people who come in here, get a bit of power, and then kind of give that power to people who've already got a lot of power, because they want to ingratiate themselves and get things from people who've got power. He said, that's the last thing you should do, give your power to people who've got none. That's why you're here. And so Paul was like, massive in terms of prisoner welfare and homelessness and refugees. He really said to me, that's why you are here. And I never forgot that. And some of my work on homelessness has been very much influenced by Paul. But to me, that is bringing a sort of faith perspective to politics. And the reason why people think sometimes they don't mix is because probably that's an exception, really, in terms of. Paul was an exception to the norm. But that's why, you know, I remember him and I like talking about him because he should be talked about. He was an incredible influence on my life.

[Elizabeth Day]

Prime Minister, first Prime Minister on how to fail. You set the bar very, very high. I obviously have to ask you if your eyelashes are real. If you do anything to them, anything

[Podcast Host or Advertiser]

to your brows or your lashes, you're not falling off.

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

I get accused.

[Andy Burnham]

I don't.

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

This is one thing from my dad actually. I can be great. He kept his sort of darker hair,

[Andy Burnham]

not so much now, but quite late and everyone thinks I dyer.

[Marie France (Wife of Andy Burnham)]

I can prove that I don't. But no. So he gave me some good things.

[Elizabeth Day]

Well, it's been a real privilege to ask you that important question and all of the others. Thank you so, so much for coming on Homestead.

[Andy Burnham]

You're so welcome, Elizabeth. Thanks for having me on.

[Podcast Host or Advertiser]

Please do follow how to fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Please tell all your friends this is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast.

[Elizabeth Day]

Thank you so much for listening.

[Shopify Advertiser]

Starting a business can seem like a daunting task unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz and Allbirds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into Sign up for your $1 per month [e-mail] specialoffer.com.