STEPHEN GLOVER: After his outrageous coup, shameless usurper Andy Burnham must call an election or he will leave the UK even more divided

How pleasant it is in life to have an obligation to do something that is in one’s own interests.Andy Burnham is in that happy position. Having mounted a coup against Sir Keir Starmer, he now proposes to lead a Government with an entirely new set of policies, many of which were not in Labour’s 2024 manifesto. He has a constitutional duty to call an early general election.At the same time it would be to his advantage to do so. I don’t say he is sure to triumph. But his current popularity – the ‘Burnham bounce’ – is certain to collapse in a few months. His only hope is to go to the country before the country learns to despise him.Will he? Having read English Literature at Cambridge, he will be familiar with the famous lines from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: ‘There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.’Looking at our new, unelected Prime Minister, I’m not at all sure he’ll have the courage to seize the moment. In which case his political life will assuredly end ‘in shallows and in miseries’.He may well calculate that the hazard of calling an election is too great. Why jeopardise an enormous parliamentary majority of more than 150? Hardly any Labour MPs want an election since, even if their party scraped a victory, many of them would lose their seats.How tempting for Burnham to set about his ambition of dragging us back, kicking and screaming, to the 1970s without his having to take the risk of being rejected by the electorate.But if he follows this course, disaster awaits. Even at the start of what is bound to be a short-lived honeymoon, around half of voters think that there should be an election, according to polls. How tempting for Andy Burnham to set about his ambition of dragging us back, kicking and screaming, to the 1970sSurvation in today’s Daily Mail finds that 51 per cent want him to go to the country this year. In yesterday’s Mail on Sunday, a poll by Find Out Now suggested that 47 per cent of respondents believe that Burnham should call an election to legitimise his agenda.Imagine how a volatile and easily disgruntled electorate will react if Andy Burnham forges on regardless. His refusal to countenance consulting the voters would lead to huge public resentment.Many will ask by what authority he presumes to promulgate policies not mentioned in Labour’s election manifesto. In some cases, they were specifically ruled out.For example, there has been much speculation that Burnham’s administration will raise the top rate of income tax from 45 to 50 per cent. This would contravene Labour’s 2024 commitment not to ‘increase the basic, higher, or additional rates of income tax’.Even before the Burnhamites have swarmed into No 10, apparently reliable leaks are suggesting that the new Government will fast-track drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea.If this extends to new fields, a manifesto pledge will be broken. I am enthusiastically in favour of encouraging more North Sea exploration. Yet the fact remains that Labour was elected on a platform not to permit this.We can, in fact, be confident that in many areas Prime Minister Burnham will either introduce measures that weren’t included in the 2024 manifesto (for instance, a new wealth tax) or were purposely excluded.This is outrageous. It really is a coup. Defenestrating the hapless Starmer was only the beginning. What follows is the shoving down our throats of policies for which none of us voted.Unless Burnham calls an election, that is. He would be foolish not to. He surely can’t be so deluded that he believes he’s going to transform people’s lives in the way he is recklessly promising.For one thing, he and his as yet unnamed Chancellor will run out of money very soon. A quick costing of his spending commitments suggests that it won’t take long for the bond markets to recoil.Starmer has left Burnham with a £5billion hole in the disgracefully inadequate defence plans unveiled three weeks ago. If the new Prime Minister wants to strengthen our Armed Forces, as he claims he does, he’ll have to find tens of billions in addition.There has been talk in the Burnham camp of a programme of council house building unmatched since the early 1950s. This again will cost billions of pounds the Government doesn’t have, and is unlikely to reassure anxious bond markets.Meanwhile, garrulous Burnhamites brief the Press about renationalising privatised industries, which in the case of the water companies alone would cost around £100billion, according to official figures.The Government is immediately liable for £2billion in order to put failing Thames Water into special administration. This is likely to be a downpayment on much larger ones.Then there are rumours that Angela Rayner will be put in charge of the NHS and of devising a new system of social care. How do Andy and Ange imagine they are going to find the money for that?Outgoing Chancellor Rachel Reeves has set aside a fiscal buffer – i.e. money kept for a very rainy day – of £22billion, some of which has already been spent. Based on the commitments made in the past couple of weeks, the Burnhamites will run through this in no time.Factor in Burnham’s general blather about making ‘life more affordable’, plus leaked undertakings to cut energy bills, and the prospective costs swell to gargantuan proportions. Needless to say, there’s no talk of reducing public spending, in particular soaring welfare payments.The new Government has of course no prospect of being able to pay for a fraction of this extravagant wish list, as will quickly become clear. The consequence will be widespread disillusion among those who haven’t already seen through the sweet talking Andy Burnham.That is why he should call an election before it becomes obvious that he is the political equivalent of a mountebank purporting to sell an unwary public the elixir of eternal youth.There’s another consideration, which should get Burnham thinking. Reform UK – still Labour’s most formidable opponent – is in partial disarray as a result of financial scandals.Nigel Farage’s party could recover – or it might go into freefall. No one can say. But Burnham would be wise to strike while Reform is weakened, and before the Tories have been able to show that they are capable of again being a formidable political force.In short, the new Prime Minister’s own interests dovetail with the constitutional obligation to call an election to validate his array of radical new policies.Yet I doubt he is a man of destiny. He’ll probably play it safe like his former mentor (one of several) Gordon Brown, who fatally failed to seek a mandate when he succeeded Tony Blair in 2007. Brown’s fortunes then ebbed inexorably until voters got rid of him in 2010.Without an election, the shameless usurper Andy Burnham is doomed. My fear is that he will pull us down with him, and leave a country even more disenchanted and divided than it is now.