The United Kingdom got its seventh Prime Minister in a decade in Andy Burnham this week. He replaced his Labour Party colleague Keir Starmer, who quit barely two years after taking charge.
The revolving door at 10 Downing Street reflects discontent among Britons amid rising living costs and dimming economic prospects a decade after the UK left the EU. Burnham has sought to distance himself from Starmer.
While some of his cabinet picks suggest a back being turned on Labour’s ‘third way’ embrace of centrist rather than leftist economic policies, the new PM’s choice of John Healey as chancellor of the exchequer signals higher defence spending but not at the cost of fiscal chaos.
The market for UK sovereign bonds is well known for its vigil on London’s budget arithmetic. Even less tax-and-spend-happy Conservative administrations had to learn that the hard way.
In the political arena, Burnham may well opt for heady rhetoric against ‘neoliberal’ economics and private interests getting the better of public purposes, but bond investors will probably be waiting for what the next budget looks like. For an economic revival, third-way pragmatism may be Burnham’s best bet.