Andy Burnham's speech at the People's History Museum was one of the best and most inspiring delivered by a Labour politician for a long time. Refreshingly, it made a clear and coherent argument — using both emotion and reason — for a huge transfer of power out of Westminster. Within weeks, he is expected to be Prime Minister. Whether that vision survives contact with government will turn not just on who occupies No 10 but crucially on who he sends to No 11.
Making devolution work is not an administrative adjustment. It is major change driven through a settled status quo, defended at every turn by vested interests — and no interest in Britain is more settled than the Treasury itself. Finance is what makes devolution real: funding settlements, borrowing powers, fiscal frameworks that trust places to decide for themselves. A Chancellor who can drive change is vital to making Andy Burnham's agenda succeed.
It would be easy for Labour to be cautious but that will not deliver the change that is needed. The past two years have shown where reassurance-as-strategy leads: a government that treated governing as administration, mistook fiscal rules for an economic argument, and ended up with neither effectiveness nor gratitude. Markets punish drift and so do voters. In choosing his Chancellor, these are the four tests that should inform Andy Burnham's choice.
First, do they believe in the power of government to make radical change? Keir Starmer complained that too many in Whitehall were "comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline" and then governed as though managing that decline were the job. The diagnosis was right; the managerialism that followed proved the point. Homes will not build themselves, the grid will not rewire itself and power will not devolve itself. I have come to the conclusion that there are two types of people in the world: those who want to change it and those who want to keep it the same. These types cut across ideologies and political allegiances, as Tony Blair described in his "forces of conservatism" speech.
Power is also an advantage Labour has over the Tories and Reform. Labour can set the political agenda, if it chooses. Labour should not allow itself to just be reacting to the Reform or Tory tune but playing its own. To do that, we need a change maker in the Treasury.
The second test is whether they are political. The Chancellor is the government's chief political economist, not its chief accountant. The role demands a coherence of thought that creates a symphony from otherwise disjointed policies — housing, energy, devolution, health, education, industrial strategy — so the country hears one argument rather than a playlist of announcements. It means telling a story about the economy and having an underlying approach that drives change. Fiscal rules, necessary as they are, are a constraint. They are not a plan or a message.
Third, can they drive government to get things done? Mission rhetoric is cheap; bending Whitehall to a deadline is not. The best evidence is a record: a big delivery department, stretching targets and measurable progress towards them. Change always comes with opposition; the question is whether you can overcome it.
Fourth, are they financially literate? The next Chancellor does not need to be liked by the City, but they must be respected by the markets. Radicalism without market literacy is how gilt crises start. That means someone who knows the Treasury and the City.
Labour needs a Chancellor who believes in the new Prime Minister's ambition of big change and can make it happen.
Omar Salem is a Labour Party member and writes in a personal capacity.
