DAN HODGES: Ten-year plan? The PM barely has a ten-week plan. Everyone in No10 can see that he doesn't know what he's doing

It’s time for Andy Burnham to drop the pretence. He does not have a ten-year plan for Britain.Over the past week, Downing Street has been tying itself in knots as the Prime Minister’s aides have struggled to sustain the fiction that he is on the brink of finally revealing his grand design for the nation.No10 sources briefed over the weekend that Burnham’s proposed strategy for the next decade had been downgraded to a ‘high-level blueprint’. Then Burnham revealed that the ‘blueprint’, supposedly scheduled for publication next month, was now being kicked into the New Year.Yesterday, as Labour was confronted with the charge that it didn’t have a clue what it was doing, Burnham’s team hastily announced it would be published before the House rises for the Christmas recess.They needn’t have bothered. The PM and his aides genuinely don’t know what they’re doing – and everyone inside government knows it. ‘There isn’t any clear strategy,’ one minister conceded to me. ‘They’re still trying to find their feet. They’re good at the optics and presentation to an extent. But the idea that there’s some grand plan that’s been mapped out is just spin. It’s all a bit chaotic.’A second minister agreed. ‘There are lots of people inside No10 scrabbling around trying to make this ten-year plan real,’ they told me.‘But the problem is that they can’t get Andy to take a clear decision on any of the fundamental issues. And that’s being exacerbated by the fact that they’re trying to do all this whilst they’re still building up the team. So nobody has anything to lean on. They’re all still trying to get to know one another. And they’re all still trying to get to know Andy himself.’ No10 sources briefed over the weekend that Burnham’s proposed strategy for the next decade had been downgraded to a ‘high-level blueprint’The extent of this dysfunctionality is evident in key policy areas.Inside the Cabinet, rifts are already starting to appear over what is seen as Labour’s increasingly chaotic messaging over Brexit. During the weekend media round, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy issued a thinly veiled warning: ‘I do not believe that anybody wants to repeat circular arguments about in or out, leave or remain.’ Yet that is precisely what Burnham has done with his recent declaration that everything, including a full-scale reintegration with the EU, is back on the table.Another example of the policy confusion relates to welfare. Within the Cabinet there is a consensus that despite Keir Starmer’s humiliating – and fatal – retreat over reform last year, cuts in the burgeoning bill are going to have to be found. Senior ministers believed the Prime Minister concurred. But then, last week, he announced spending would have to rise before it could fall.‘Of course, in time, the savings will come and there will be a crossover point’, he explained. ‘But there will be a need to invest up front in young people. But it’s an investment in society. It’s the right investment to make.’Then there’s defence. Again, there is a strong belief within the Cabinet that the nettle will have to be grasped and that a commitment to increasing spending to 3 per cent of GDP by 2030 will have to be made.And again, senior ministers believed Andy Burnham agreed with them. But efforts to get a clear decision from No10 on where the money will come from – and what savings from other budgets will need to be found to finance the increase – are currently meeting a brick wall. ‘I thought we had Andy lined up. Then we had that line about social security being as important as national security. So I’ve no idea where we are any more’, another minister laments.Until now, Burnham’s vacillation in these vital policy areas has been framed as shrewd political tradecraft. By leaving his options open, he has kept his opponents guessing while allowing himself to be presented as a pragmatist who is addressing the great issues of the day via a healthy dose of northern common sense.But as the deadline for the publication of the vaunted ten-year plan has approached, a different reality has emerged: the Prime Minister still hasn’t made up his mind what that plan should be.We have seen this already with both his party conference speech and the Budget. In Liverpool, he momentarily seized the political agenda with two bold announcements on pensions and social care. But pressed on the specifics, his brave vision dissipated. Last month’s Budget landed well. But Burnham left it to John Healey, pictured, to pilot the plane, with instructions that consisted of nothing more than ‘don’t crash’Similarly, last month’s Budget landed well. But Burnham left it to John Healey to pilot the plane, with instructions that consisted of nothing more than ‘don’t crash’. Each time the Prime Minister is presented with an opportunity to detail the direction he intends to lead the country in, he ducks it. The great set-piece political moments are treated as hurdles to clear – or burrow under – rather than waypoints to providing clear, decisive leadership.He does have a strategy of sorts. But it’s essentially a ten-week plan, not a ten-year plan.Burnham’s sole focus now is to get through the next couple of months by praying for a mild winter and peace in the Middle East, offering a few extra pounds to deal with rising energy bills, chucking in a few cheeky Christmas homilies and hoping the opinion polls will do the rest.A snap election in the spring or early summer is the current extent of his event horizon.And if the polls don’t comply, and Kemi Badenoch continues her own post-conference surge, it will be back to the drawing board.In the meantime, rather than unveil his grand vision, he will continue to communicate via political semaphore.An unguarded comment here. An abstract ambition there. Nudges, winks, public entreaties that begin, ‘I have to be honest…’ before he trails off into more studied obfuscation. This is fast becoming the Burnham MO.And for the moment it’s working. The Prime Minister speaks human. To an electorate wearied by austerity, Covid and the cost of living, his subliminal messaging that the tough decisions can be deferred for a while longer is seductive.And though still something of a relatively unknown quantity, in the eyes of a significant portion of the electorate the fact that he’s not Keir Starmer or Nigel Farage is qualification enough.But sooner or later Andy Burnham is going to have to come clean. Actually, he’s going to have to come clean next month.As one Labour insider told me: ‘They’ve boxed themselves in with this “ten-year plan” nonsense. Just look at it on a basic political level. You don’t publish your election manifesto – which is what it would basically be – five or six months before you call the election, never mind a couple of years before. It just gives your opponents time to rip it apart and, when you get to the campaign, everyone’s bored of it.’So we already know there will be no grand vision, or even a coherent blueprint.When the curtain is finally pulled back on Burnham’s ten-year plan, it will be simply to reveal just another series of vague ambitions and uncosted aspirations.For now, the Prime Minister doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing. It would be much better for the country – and for him – if he just admitted it.