BRIAN READE: 'Andy Burnham set fire to Thatcherism and Brexit – I punched the air in delight'

Call me a nerdy sad sack but I get most of my laughs these days from opening right-wing newspapers. The gags are unintentional but often belters. Like the one on Monday hailing Kemi Badenoch as “ruthless” for sacking “big beasts” Mel Stride and Priti Patel from her shadow cabinet. Even though Larry the Downing Street cat is a bigger, and far more accomplished, political beast. Then there was the appointment of Andrew Griffiths as shadow chancellor, which they hailed as “astute” despite Griffiths being one of the “brains” behind Liz Truss ’s disastrous mini- Budget which wiped £300billion off government bonds. A Budget hailed at the time by the Sunday Telegraph editor as “the best budget I have ever heard by a massive margin” which left the Daily Mail panting “At Last – A True Tory Budget” that would “turbocharge growth”. Side-splitters all. And this week, as Andy Burnham set fire to two of their most sacred gods, Thatcherism and Brexit, the comedic apoplexy over his “clichéd, dogma-ridden rhetoric” was off the scale. Back in the real world, Burnham’s speech left many of us punching the air in delight. In it he claimed Britain had taken a series of wrong turns in the past 40 years resulting in “political power being centralised, economic power privatised and the country deindustrialised” which led to austerity, inequality and the hollowing out of large parts of the country made worse by a self-harming Brexit. Sentiments I’ve been writing in this column for many years and ones I’d waited my entire adult life to hear spoken by a Labour Prime Minister with genuine conviction. Drowning out the gasps of outrage from the Tory benches as Burnham spoke truth to power were the purrs of pleasure from Labour’s. Finally they have a leader who is not afraid to tell it like most of them feel it. One who doesn’t cower before the hysterical voices of the self-appointed guardians of Middle England but has the balls to say I’m going to put into practice the principles that my party stands for. Burnham’s bold vision to reinvigorate abandoned parts of Britain is precisely what Labour was set up for. A modern take on Harold Wilson’s mantra from the 1960s: “Labour is a moral crusade or it is nothing”. This skint, divided country cannot move forward unless we heal the scars left by decades of privatised vandalism, and a misguided philosophy that if we let a rich elite rake in all the wealth they will ensure it trickles down. Burnham’s critics say all he offers is “vibes” when he is offering a diagnosis and a solution. He may not be able to achieve a solution but he’s showing Labour stands for something again. Something worth fighting for. And I fear it could be the party’s last shot at relevance. New forces on the Left (the Greens) and the Right (Reform and Restore) have drawn millions of voters away from a political centre perceived as failing them. If Labour sits in the middle of the road, offering nothing but Tory-lite policies for fear of upsetting a media that mostly despises everything it stands for, it will be run down and buried. If Burnham fails then Labour as we know it, probably does too. And for millions of ordinary Brits that would be no laughing matter. The Stone Street 6-inch Waterproof Platform Boot is made with Premium Timberland® leather and a ReBOTL™ fabric lining containing at least 50% recycled PET plastic.