although Sir Keir made a start on reforming planning rules and financial- services regulation. His departure offers the chance of a fresh start, business leaders hope. Unfortunately for them, the former prime minister and chancellor were not solely to blame for Labour’s shaky relationship with the corporate world. Pro-business feeling is rare within the party: just 6% of its MPs came to the House of Commons from commerce or finance (compared with 31% for Conservative MPs), whereas 11% worked for a trade union and 39% had another political job before entering Parliament (see chart). Not a single member of the new cabinet has had a significant business career. Tory cabinets between 2010 and 2024 were usually stuffed with businesspeople, including the six chancellors who came before Ms Reeves. Party bigwigs would visit factories and building sites—with big industrial workforces—but seemed less comfortable with the services-based firms likely to drive growth. The pro-business minority within the party complain that colleagues default to a “corporatist” approach redolent of the old economy. A former Labour staffer describes a “spiritual gap” between the party and business. A corporate boss grumbles that “‘unions good, businesses bad’ is an article of faith that a lot of them haven’t thought
about.” The lack of understanding goes both ways: business leaders often misunderstand politics. Mr Burnham’s record as mayor of Greater Manchester suggests he understands the importance of close collaboration with business. Mark Allan, the CEO of LandSec, a property developer, praises his approach of encouraging the private sector to plough money into Manchester city centre while using public funds to invest in the shabbier towns around its edge. The prime minister sees his political identity as “business-friendly old Labour”, an aide says. His rhetoric is less promising. Mr Burnham fulminates against “neoliberalism” and privatisation, and gives little indication that he understands that the profit motive can drive benefits to society at large. His early interventions have been aimed at lowering the cost of living for households via price caps or tax tweaks, not supply-side reforms to make it cheaper to produce goods and services. In the two speeches he has made since becoming prime minister he has not mentioned “growth” or “business” (Sir Keir gave a speech on his first full day in Number 10 which mentioned “growth” four times). The prime minister seems to be getting on fine with the leaders of America and the EU, but has had almost nothing to say about trade policy. Miles Celic, head of TheCityUK, an industry lobby group, warns that “Burnham really needs to set out what he stands for in terms of attracting international investment.” The prime minister is in talks to hire Jim O’Neill, a former banker and Conservative minister, to a job in Downing Street, but the Times reports that this may be derailed by a disagreement over wealth taxes. Business is not a monolith. Startups are frustrated by bureaucracy but blame the civil service rather than ministers. Banks are quietly pleased by their treatment under Labour. Pubs and restaurants are enraged by their tax burden —but optimistic that they will be top of Mr Burnham’s list of companies to placate, given their role in perking up high streets, one of his avowed goals (indeed, pubs have already been promised a lower business-rates bill). Many are nervous about Mr Burnham’s plans. If he acts on his rhetoric, business is in for a battering. But there are reasons for hope. The handful of
Labour officials whom business trusted as a conduit to Number 10 have all been kept on. Jonathan Reynolds, back as business secretary after being shuffled out last year, is respected by those who have dealt with him, as is the AI minister, Kanishka Narayan. Both sit within a souped-up business and trade department which has absorbed the previously separate science and technology brief. Tech firms are unhappy about this change, but putting all the biggest levers of growth under one roof could help countermand the overbearing power of the Treasury. Sir Keir spoke in ways that business loved, then often enacted policies it hated. Mr Burnham has the chance to do the inverse: talk populist, act centrist.■ This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/britain/2026/08/13/andy-burnhams-chance-to-reset-labours- relations-with-business
British business has failed to make its voice heard It needs to do better with Andy Burnham Aug 13th 2026 Business leaders can be naive when it comes to politics. It was a mistake for them to cheerlead for Labour before the most recent general election without thinking through the impact of the party’s policies. For example, they seemed to assume that the Employment Rights Act, which gives workers much more protection against their bosses, would be heavily watered down despite its importance to Labour MPs and the trade unions. In talks on the details of the new law, representatives of the government and unions were shocked at business groups’ poor negotiating skill. Bosses are often afraid to engage in politics, beyond contributing bland quotes to government press releases. Public-affairs experts speak with frustration about how hard it is to persuade high-profile leaders to talk about
policies that would help their firms, for fear of looking silly if they do not get what they want. The few who do speak out—such as Greg Jackson, the founder of Octopus Energy, or Tim Martin of J D Wetherspoon, a chain of pubs—can be resented by their peers. Voters generally believe that if taxes do need to go up, it is fine to nobble business (though they are even keener on whacking the rich). Firms have work to do to explain to politicians why that will end up making the public poorer, by raising prices and curbing growth. It is now time, most bosses believe, to put on a brave face and make nice with Andy Burnham’s new team. Firms are anxious to avoid being cut out as they were under Sir Keir Starmer . The government should be “working with business from the start, not after decisions have been made”, according to Lena Levy of the British Chambers of Commerce, a lobby group. They are also crying out for the stability that the last lot promised but did not provide: barely a year into his government, Sir Keir replaced the business secretary, City minister and AI minister as part of a largely unnecessary reshuffle. And businesses are desperate to avoid any further tax raids at the budget which the new chancellor, John Healey, will deliver in October. Even his fellow ministers admit they have no way of knowing how he will pay for an expected bump in defence spending. If the government keeps on avoiding broad-based tax rises while dodging serious spending cuts, businesses will fear a fiscal flogging that will keep animal spirits restrained. Speaking out more boldly could help reduce that risk.■ This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/britain/2026/08/13/british-business-has-failed-to-make- its-voice-heard
Andy Burnham and the politics of accents His way of speaking marks him out in a long line of posh-sounding PMs Aug 13th 2026 WATCH A VIDEO of Andy Burnham’s remarks after being appointed prime minister, turn the automatic transcript on, and you might be in for a surprise: “I have just returned from Bookingham Palace,” reads one. It is a seminal moment: none of his predecessors in the age of recording has pronounced “Buckingham” in a way a transcriber would render as “Bookingham”. He is also the first to rhyme words like “class” with “gas”. In short, he sounds like a northerner, much more so than anyone who has taken office at Number 10 Downing Street, says Geoff Lindsey of University College London. Millions of Britons talk like Mr Burnham. Raised near Liverpool, later moving to Manchester, he is often seen as a pleaser, but it is impossible to please everyone, especially in two rival cities. In 2016 he told Rob
Drummond, a linguist at Manchester Metropolitan University, that he was accused of playing up Scouse sounds in Liverpool and Manc vowels in Manchester. He calls his own accent “generic northern”. Not every prime minister has spoken with perfect Received Pronunciation (RP), even setting aside the Scottish and Welsh ones. Jim Callaghan's “r”s in words like “worst” and “work” were a giveaway: he came from Portsmouth, near the south-western part of England where “r”s are sometimes pronounced after vowels. Harold Wilson’s Yorkshire roots were also reflected in his accent, though he was less easy to instantly peg as a northerner than Mr Burnham. Two more recent prime ministers, Sir Tony Blair and Liz Truss, grew up in the north but didn’t sound like it. Things were different in the 19th century. Robert Peel, prime minister in the 1830s and 1840s, was known for a Lancashire accent. William Gladstone, born in Liverpool to Scottish parents, was said to have a north-western accent, too—though it is hardly apparent in the formal greeting to Thomas Edison in the first recording of a British prime minister. But by the mid-20th century, a cut-glass RP held sway from Oxbridge to the BBC and Westminster. That mid-century accent now sounds almost comical, disappearing swiftly as the 1960s made working-class and regional accents cooler in the wider culture. But things changed more slowly in politics. Labour in particular began to flaunt its MPs with working-class, regional accents. But none of them made it to Number 10. Room continues to open up slowly for a Westminster that sounds like the country. Jo Platt, an MP for Leigh and Atherton near Manchester, grew up in Salford. As a marketing trainee in the 1980s, she changed her accent to avoid the mockery she saw visited on others; when she would call friends after leaving work they would say “Why are you speaking like that?” She has since embraced her old accent, and kicked off a recent parliamentary debate on the topic. (A Northern Irish MP shared tales of Hansard staff chasing him to ask what he had said for the official record.) Dr Drummond and Amanda Cole of Cambridge have begun a research project to find out more about accents in Westminster. Dr Cole hails from
Essex, and her research—using her own voice—has found that people rate an Essex-accented speaker as 11% less intelligent than RP speakers. “I don’t think we’re at a point in this country yet where we could have a prime minister with an Essex accent,” she says.■ This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/britain/2026/08/13/andy-burnham-and-the-politics-of- accents