Andy Burnham is the first truly Gen X prime minister – here’s why that matters
On Monday, Andy Burnham gave his first speech as prime minister. “My generation of politicians needs to raise our game, rise to the challenge... to make our politics work better. We have not been good enough,” he said.
I was struck by his talk of “My Generation” – because Andy is the first true Generation X politician, born in 1970; he is 56 years old, as I will be in December. And as Gen X, we are kings and queens of the midlife maelstrom: we had kids late, and our parents are elderly, so we are the sandwich carer generation, just as we are at the peak of our careers.
The day before Andy Burnham made his debut as prime minister, his interview with The Sunday Times was published, in which he talked about the shadow over his moment of triumph, the fact that his dad, Roy, has dementia, so doesn’t even know his son is the PM.
This is particularly poignant as Andy credits his beloved dad Roy as being the wellspring of his own Labour journey. In 1979 just after Maggie Thatcher was elected, Burnham asked his dad about a bumper sticker on the car in front which read: “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted Labour.”
The damage wrought by Thatcher and her neoliberalism, which deindustrialised the North, was another key part of Burnham’s speech on Monday morning. His dad would have been as proud as punch.
Speaking about him, Andy said: “We were with him [Roy] last Sunday. We were at his care home. My two brothers were there, my mum was there. So, all five of us together, which was a nice thing. We were talking about it, but I don’t think he’s ever realised because of his condition… That’s a sadness because he would be [proud]… the way I look at it, it’s his achievement as well. A whole family achievement although he doesn’t know it.”
It was a poignant moment of deep relatability. A million people in the UK have dementia, and The Alzheimer’s Society estimates that half of British families have a member with dementia. Burnham knows the living grief of dealing with a loved one who no longer remembers all the minute details of their own life, or those of the lives of the people they love most.
As a result of his own experience, Burnham has talked about the “broken” nature of the social care system, and made fixing it a point of honour for his time as prime minister, insisting that, unlike other administrations, his won’t kick this can down the road, but will “grasp the nettle”.
His understanding of the stresses normal families are facing – whether it is caring for elders or the cost of living – is at the core of the electoral appeal which led to Burnham winning the Makerfield byelection last month and beating the challenge from Reform with a landslide. By talking so openly about the plight of his father, he is staying true to not just his own experience, but that of so many of his fellow Gen X-ers who, just like him, are coping with the midlife caring collision. He knows how hard it is to ride the waves of our own lives and careers while sitting in the crosshairs of caring for ailing elders and Gen Z kids emerging into an uncertain future.
Just last week he was watching his daughter graduate from Cardiff University. Trying to launch your offspring into the world while simultaneously coping with elderly parents is no mean feat. And suddenly, Andy Burnham not only knows how this feels, but he is now in a real position to do something about it. We already know that dealing with the care system for his father has steeled his resolve to reform it; perhaps having a daughter graduating in a generation piled high with student debt will also cause him to look more closely at the graduate debt crisis? Already that Gen X lens is showing in what Burnham is putting at the centre of his programme for government. This morning he talked about getting our young people back into work, by giving them increased mental health support – as the parents of Gen Zs we know how crucial that is.
Research shows that over half of midlifers have been through at least five of divorce, bereavement, redundancy, caring for elderly parents, or a Gen Z with mental health issues, not to mention their own health and financial troubles by 50; and that often all of these hit together in a midlife collision.
In former generations a prime minister’s wife might have been expected to pick up some of the caring slack. But Burnham is a true Gen X in this respect too. His wife, Marie France van Heel, whom he met when they were both studying at Cambridge 35 years ago, (they married in 2000) works full time (she is the chief marketing officer of Iduna Infrastructure, the parent firm of Be.EV, an electric vehicle charging network). An independent career woman with her own life and responsibilities, she has also had her own health troubles. In 2012 she had a preventative double mastectomy when diagnosed with the BRCA gene for breast cancer.
Andy is very close to his mum Eileen, a staunch Catholic, to whom he attributes his own strong faith. When asked about that faith, he replied: “My mother would never forgive me if I answered No to that question.” Eileen was wearing out her rosary beads and praying for him as he arrived in Number Ten on Monday morning; but with a husband who is ailing, she will also need support.
All of this matters because Burnham, more than any other prime minister in living memory, has entered Number 10 determined to up the game of his generation of politicians to make Britain work for everyone. This isn’t just rhetoric; he means it.
“Where I’ve gone wrong sometimes in my political career is when I’ve not been true to my instincts. I hate saying it like this but my instincts are pretty good..I do listen to people, that's where I’ve always picked up my straws in the wind,” he said, explaining why he will be going back to his beloved Everton to sit in his normal seat in the stands as much as possible.
“Just keeping close to people, close to the ground… it’s all about helping people,” he insists.
Generation X grew up in a time without helicopter parents or health and safety and spending their formative years during the turbulent years of the miners’ strike, poll tax riots and over 3 million people unemployed. Many children of this generation watched parents lose their jobs and homes as interest rates soared and the property market collapsed. We understood early on that no one was coming to save us, we were left to our own devices, earning our own money with Saturday jobs and developing self-reliance as latch-key kids of the first generation of working mothers and of widespread divorce. We were an analogue generation who came of age with the first computer games – but without smartphones and enjoyed Nineties’ raves without any of it being caught on camera.
It means as a generation we are known for our curious mix of self-reliance, hard work and hedonism. For me this feels personal. I was also born in 1970 and started out my own working life with Andy Burnham, literally.
In our early 20s, both English literature graduates from Oxbridge, we shared an office. Andy was my boss on Tank World magazine in 1993. There were only two employees, me and him: our windows looked out onto the M4 flyover in Brentford. Lunch was a stale sarnie from the Esso garage. There was a recession in the early Nineties – writing about tank containers was a starter job for both of us, not our dream, but it paid the bills.
We were both ambitious for bigger things; indeed I recommended Andy to my stepmother Tessa Jowell who was looking for a parliamentary researcher. Even back then he was passionate about giving the kids who he’d grown up with in Warrington a fair chance; he was academically gifted and so had got to university – but he would talk about all the friends who’d felt on the scrap heap with no technical education and no jobs because Thatcher had destroyed the industrial base. He’s always had a strong sense of trying to make the country work for everyone. He means it when he talks about ‘straws in the wind’ and concentrating government time, money and energy on things which will actually move the dial for normal people.
And as the first real Gen X PM, Burnham has the toughness we all shared growing up coupled with a finger on the populist pulse to tackle the issues facing his whole generation: whether it’s the cost of living, caring for elderly parents, our children emerging into the world saddled with mighty debts, both partners in couples working, time poor and being hit with challenges from every direction at once, Andy gets it.
After the tin-ear of Sir Keir, perhaps he can use the Labour mandate to bring about the change the whole country needs. Today he talked about bringing back “hope”. For the first time in a while, there is a sense of optimism in the air that things really may be different. As for whether things will get better? Fingers crossed.