David Blunkett: Ignore the critics, the Burnham I know has the power to re-energise Britain

I’ve made this less garbled after checking with Ceri - if still garbled pls iron out further, then email C the final copy to share with Blunkett - thanks, E

This week, the seventh prime minister in just over 10 years will enter Downing Street with the avowed intention of changing the political weather and restoring hope and ambition. Andy Burnham’s goal is also to give Labour a chance of gaining the trust of the people for a second parliamentary term in office.

I’ve heard two lines of attack on Burnham over recent months, mostly from people who have only a passing acquaintance with him. That he doesn’t like taking difficult decisions, and that he changes his mind.

Given that he was kind enough to describe himself as my “apprentice” when he was my parliamentary private secretary and in his early days as a minister, I should confess that there have been times in my life when I too found major decisions extremely difficult and, believe it or not, I’ve occasionally changed my mind.

This latter “accusation” is easy to dismiss. Anyone who listens, builds a team, seeks to persuade and avoids damaging stubbornness when responding to argument has the aptitude and antennae to be in tune with the nation.

My answer to the first jibe is a simple one. How many people in politics today do you think would have had the courage and audacity to seek to return to Westminster by defeating Reform UK in an area where, in the local elections on 7 May, it had taken 50% of the vote? The party had recently pushed Labour into third place in the Gorton and Denton byelection.

If the decision to “go for it”, risk losing everything politically (including your reputation) and then to move to take the premiership is not an outstanding example of a willingness to take a difficult decision, then I don’t know what is.

It’s true that government is eye-wateringly difficult. I was in the teeth of it in the eight years I was in cabinet. From the original version of tuition fees to saving the higher education sector, through to dealing with the aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center and beyond on 11 September 2001, difficult decisions became a weekly challenge.

Inevitably the buck stops with the prime minister, so anything I experienced with Andy Burnham watching my back in the House of Commons pales into insignificance compared with the multiplicity of domestic and international issues that, as PM, he will now have to deal with.

Seeking to be empathetic, to reach out and, above all, to tell a story is a plus, not a minus. This government almost set out to make itself unpopular, with all the consequences that has brought to our body politic. So, hardheaded decision-making, tough choices – the founder of the NHS, Aneurin Bevan, once described priorities as “the language of socialism” – and popularity can genuinely go hand-in-hand.

No one, in my view, should underestimate the importance of mobilising everyone of good will to be part of delivering a better country to live in and improved quality of life and experience of both public and private service. Individuals in their own lives can also make a difference to how others see the world around them.

Andy Burnham has the ability to energise not only the Whitehall machine (which needs electric shock therapy) but every part of the United Kingdom – given a fair wind and, crucially, a period of grace from the cynics, the naysayers and those who have sadly got used to rubbishing everything.

Part of lifting morale and motivation will be to put a rocket booster under the skills agenda for the young unemployed and inactive, all the way through to ensuring that increased defence spending equals growth in communities across the country, rather than yet another boost to US exports.

An urgent building of capacity in communities and combined authorities in England, and in the parliament and assemblies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, is vital. But a devolution agenda that pumps oxygen into a balloon with a hole in it will get us nowhere.

One of the twists of fate that the new prime minister will have to handle as a political challenge is that, for the first time since 2010, genuinely improved funding is being injected into local government in England. Given the results in local elections outside London over the past two years, Reform councillors will start to gain credit for resources made available by central government. This will matter enormously for the future of our democracy.

Perhaps I might be forgiven for saying what I hear others say but is not always welcome in the political arena. Namely, that if we are going to stop being what was once described as “the sick man of Europe”, there is going to have to be a change in mindset.

But to return to the challenge of making tough decisions, “work programmes” can work in practice if we exempt only those who are seriously ill or profoundly disabled. Having a job, having a purpose and meeting people is good for us. Getting tough on idleness or self-assigned disability is not “nasty politics” but tough love.

In wishing the new prime minister a commodity rarely available in the modern era – some good luck – I’m wishing the same sentiment for all of us. This is not a spectator sport, but rather about the lives of every single one of us, and if the government plays its part, so must we. Time to put misery behind us and build instead a partnership for change.

Photograph by Oli Scarff/Getty Images