Rhun and Andy: Bromance, showmance or fat chance?

Desmond Clifford

Andy Burnham passed his first 100 days as Prime Minister last week, just a few days before meeting Rhun ap Iorwerth in Glasgow.

Rhun’s first 100 days were clocked only a few weeks before. Like Mars and Jupiter in the night sky, it’s a rare conjunction of fresh political leadership.

In fact, neither the First Minister nor the Prime Minister is remotely like Mars (the god of war) or Jupiter (the god of thunder). They are relatable, guitar-playing, music-loving, jogging, good at social media, a touch blokeish, disarming and friendly.

It’s rare enough: I can tell you for a fact that many politicians are unrelatable, unfriendly and socially cursed. I imagine Rhun and Andy get on like a house on fire.

The mood music from their meeting last week seemed more positive than not. Rhun reported progress on more flexible borrowing arrangements for the Welsh Government. If so, good; this will help the Welsh Government to plan better for large infrastructure projects.

Downing Street hasn’t challenged Rhun’s interpretation, but these things are slippery, and I’d like to see the exchange of letters with the Treasury confirming new arrangements before dancing a jig.

There’s an emerging sense that whoever meets Burnham comes away feeling they’ve agreed something, only to see it vanish later like a chimerical oasis on the horizon.

In this week of All Hallows, is this trickery, sleight of hand? Or is it that same political alchemy which persuaded a Brexit-supporting constituency in Manchester to elect Britain’s most pro-European politician?

Ahead of becoming Prime Minister, Burnham had no recorded views on Welsh devolution, though he obviously had plenty to say about Manchester. Many of us intuited that he was bound to be on the side of the angels – though there was a time when I assumed something similar about Starmer. More fool me.

A few months on, we’re still waiting for Burnham to show his hand, if, indeed, he has a hand to show. The appointment of Stephen Kinnock as Welsh Secretary – and therefore the UK Government’s primary source of political perspective on Wales – was hardly encouraging. Stephen is privately thoughtful and serious but has never shown detailed interest in Welsh governance, and he probably wanted a different kind of job. Burnham had limited options; the Welsh Parliamentary Labour Party these days is mostly full of British-focused careerists.

The Labour group in the Senedd isn’t much help either. Its positioning since May’s election has been weird. Previously marginal voices in a larger group have become louder in a truncated rump. They are so partisan that they cannot differentiate between Plaid Cymru and Wales. They are happy to see Wales disadvantaged if, in their world, it pokes Plaid in the eye. They are so blinded by partisanship that they cannot see this merely widens the breach with voters who believe that elected members, from any party, should prioritise Wales above all else. Labour is the historic party of Welsh devolution, and it should look to strengthen that legacy at every opportunity.

The idea being tossed around is a transfer of powers and resources towards local government. In Burnham’s England, this is a straightforward prospectus. In Wales, the Welsh Government is the elected and accountable strategic authority, and any attempts by the UK Government to bypass it will end in pain.

The channelling of money directly to local authorities, creating a pork barrel with a role for MPs, began under Boris Johnson as a way of circumventing devolved governments in the distribution of post-Brexit cash. Keir Starmer opposed the practice in opposition and then continued it in government, just one among his many disappointments.

With caveats, notably the need for stronger scrutiny, enhanced powers for local authorities can be a positive agenda. But how it is done, and who does it, matters.

It would be sad if Andy Burnham, who has branded himself as Mr Devolution, were to collude with partisan politics rather than rewiring Britain in a more fundamental way.

Plaid Cymru is a separatist party and suffers, rather than glorifies, devolution. Reform in Wales is all over the shop. Its leader supports, or at least accepts, devolution, but there’s no hiding undercurrents running in the opposite direction. The Lib Dems don’t count much anymore, and the Greens, like Plaid, favour separation.

This leaves Labour as the effective monopoly holder of pro-devolution policy in Wales. It’s a mystery why it wants to surrender this position. All it has succeeded in doing is driving “Wales first” voters towards Plaid in large numbers.

I’m choosing to remain optimistic that the Rhun–Andy relationship can be something positive and practical. It’s hard to believe Burnham could seriously oppose the devolution of policing to Wales, for example. There’s not a single respectable argument against it, as Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, reminds us from time to time.

If, as Stephen Kinnock said in the summer, some persuasion is needed, let two teams from the Welsh and UK Governments sit down and draw up an agreed version of the facts as a basis for political discussion.

I expect, too, that Andy Burnham believes in his heart that the current England and Wales rail classification, with HS2 scoring as a “Welsh” project even without a single inch of track built in Wales, is baloney. As a former Mayor of Manchester, he can hardly think otherwise. Is Rhun, therefore, expecting Andy to lean across the table with a cheque for a couple of billion quid, saying, “There you go, mate, you were right all along!”? I expect not. But again, a reasonable starting point is for two teams to sit down to discuss the issue and agree some facts before a political judgement and a new way forward.

It’s about trust and doing things differently. If all this happens under the auspices of “No 10 North”, so much the better. I’m very familiar with the Treasury, 10 Downing Street and the Cabinet Office – all utterly dysfunctional and the worst places in Britain to do any sort of meaningful politics.

The administrative politics of the UK are deeply unsatisfactory. At any given time, the Welsh Government should be able to sit with the UK Government and work through an agenda of current issues. In practice, so much depends on the caprice and goodwill of the Prime Minister of the day and individual Cabinet Ministers. It shouldn’t be that way, and no one knows this better than Andy Burnham. His dissatisfaction with the UK state is printed on every page of his book Head North, written jointly with Steve Rotheram, the Mayor of Liverpool.

Vast government resources are expended on short-term tactical measures, leaving little capacity for big issues that could make a real difference. A good example was last week’s Budget, delivered by the affable Chancellor, John Healey.

Leaving aside the sheer oddness of his having resigned from Starmer’s Cabinet a few months ago over defence budget issues he himself failed to address, the Budget was essentially a great big Nothing Burger of practically zero real-world import. Yet it has nearly 100 measures, a record in modern times.

I’m a convert to the “Bin the Budget” campaign, whose supporters believe there are better ways to run the country than the annual self-serving Budget charade. Although it has weaknesses of its own, the Welsh Budget is a more meaningful process. A Draft Budget for next year will be published soon, and Senedd Members will have ample opportunity to comment on it and ask detailed questions of Ministers about the issues it throws up.

In the endgame, political debate will obsess over relatively small sums in the scheme of things, and the Senedd – as we know – is not immune to political theatrics. However, the process is much clearer, less tricky and more transparent than its UK equivalent.

Burnham is said to be working on a document mapping out a 10-year vision, due in December. Obviously, there’s the small matter of elections, but in principle a long-term strategy is sound. UK Governments are spectacularly bad at it, and Welsh Governments no better. Burnham’s plan will surely need to address devolution for the nations (as opposed to English regions) and relations with the Welsh Government. If not, patience will wear thin.

Rhun ap Iorwerth and Andy Burnham are both new and, so far, unmarked by the weary cynicism of office. Potentially, they could both be in leadership positions for a good number of years. For now, I choose to believe there is goodwill and the possibility of progress for Wales.

As Prime Minister, Burnham, in principle, fills the devolution space more positively than any of his recent predecessors. He may just be the last best chance to make this work. If he fails, it may be that the game is over and Wales needs a different plan.