Will Burnham’s war on small irritations pay off?

Is Andy Burnham’s obsession with the small things that annoy voters really going to pay off? Sure, cracking down on loud music on buses, rip-off parking charges and sneaky extra charges by airlines make great talking points, but do they make the Prime Minister seem trivial and powerless over the big things? Kemi Badenoch certainly wants to suggest that, joking this week that ‘the Prime Minister is worrying about loud music on trains’ which was, in her view ‘not serious’.

It’s not as though Burnham is only talking about music on public transport: he started the week by talking about the need to get young people who are not in education, employment or training back into work. He has also been out and about justifying the decision to give the Jackdaw gas field the green light. Burnham is trying to address that feeling that so many people have that their lives are out of control But at the same time, his Defence Secretary Wes Streeting was out yesterday calling on the public to prepare for food shortages and other crises.

Streeting launched a ‘national resilience conversation’ (a title that needs a bit of work before it lingers in the mind) yesterday, saying: It’s really important we ask households and businesses, are they prepared? Are they ready? Do they know how they would respond in the event of everyday challenges that might manifest themselves? Many Brits would argue that they don’t know whether to prepare for a crisis caused by a hostile state or by another domestic water company making an unholy mess of things: even our big irritations tend to be caused by our own state or utilities failing, rather than the still very real threat of cyberwarfare.

Burnham has, to be fair, also made sure to show willing to change the situation for water by announcing legislation that removes the ban on public ownership of water companies. And, as he argued at Prime Minister’s Questions this week, he has also been trying to take difficult decisions on social care, which should be a source of greater national irritation than it is, given the cost, the poor quality of much of the care that is available, and the knock-on consequences for the NHS.

What Burnham is actually trying to do is to address that feeling that so many people have that their lives are out of control, whether because they can’t catch a bus without some loon blasting music in their ears or because they can’t find their dad a decent care home. The big and small irritations are, in his mind, inextricably linked. The problem for him will come if, when he reaches the next election, he’s only managed to stop the loons on the buses but hasn’t shown that he has any power over anything else.