𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

When you see a Back to the Future DeLorean DMC-12 parked in Downing Street there’ll be no doubt at all that Andy Burnham wants to take the country to an earlier age. The Prime Minister knows this is a nation with a weakness for nostalgia which he exploits with abandon. He proudly describes himself as “quite old school” and early in his premiership he carved out time to shoot a video with his Chancellor in which they rate classic bar snacks. He venerates musicians who achieved their greatest successes in past decades and his politics hark back to before the Thatcher and Blair revolutions. He promises the “biggest council housebuilding programme since the post-war era” and he wants to launch a “National Care Service”.

This is gutsy. He knows that talking about “council housebuilding” can trigger memories of sink estates and the disastrous herding of people out of terraced homes which needed plumbing into nightmarish, now-demolished tower blocks; likewise, he is fully aware that families across the country have National Health Service horror stories but this has not stopped him appealing to the NHS when describing his vision for social care reform.

He is investing in vibes to neutralise a narrative which has proven so powerful for the Conservatives, that Labour’s brand of post-war socialism wrecked communities, trampled on aspiration and fomented bitter industrial turmoil which pushed Britain towards social and economic collapse. Mr Burnham used his first speech as prime minister to describe how the country took “wrong turns” in the 1980s and he will set out his vision for reindustrialisation in his forthcoming 10-year plan (the Marxist overtones of this phrase do not appear to trouble him).

Most strikingly, he wants to change Britain’s relationship with the European Union. He has made it politically acceptable for Labour MPs to champion rejoining as a member state and UK and European officials are expected to discuss the return of free movement.

The hitch for Mr Burnham is that many of the “wrong turns” came when the people of the UK grabbed the country’s steering wheel because they were horrified at the chaotic conduct of the political elite. The nation was so enthralled by the Left-wing society that the 56-year-old PM romanticises that they elected Conservative majority governments in four successive opportunities, and in 2016 17.4 million Britons voted to leave the EU.

Older Britons with clear memories of the 1978-79 winter of discontent are among the citizens most likely to take part in elections. If they fear Mr Burnham is intent on returning Britain to those grim days they may resolve, once again, to take back control.