Andy Burnham

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Andy Burnham

Andy Burnham.Portrait.jpg

Name Andrew Murray Burnham (born 7 Janaury, 1970)
Nicknames Andy (everyone), Minister for Make-up (the media), Anime Andy (fandom), Angry Burnham (bitter Tories), Seven-Eight (school bullies)
Politics
Party Labour
Constituency Leigh (2001 - present)
Positions • Shadow Secretary of State for Health (7 October, 2011 - Present)
• Shadow Secretary of State for Education (8 October, 2010 – 7 October, 2011)
• Secretary of State for Health (2009-2010)
• Culture Secretary (2008-2009)
• Chief Secretary to the Treasury (2007-2008)
Likes Everton FC, sport, Liverpool, the Catholic church, chips and gravy, the NHS
Dislikes His appearance, the media's obsession with his appearance, biscuits
Friends Ed Balls, James Purnell
Enemies Michael Gove, Andrew Lansley, Jeremy Hunt
Relationships
Partners Marie-France "Frankie" van Heel (1989 - present (married in 2000))
Children Jimmy Burnham (2000), Rosie Burnham (2002), Annie Burnham (2005)
Personal Attributes
Nationality English
Religion Culturally Catholic
Sexuality Straight
Height 5' 9.5"
Eye Colour Hazel
Handedness Right
Accent Light Scouse

Would it be like taking the Andrex Puppy for bayonet practice and not be surprised that the troops wanted to pat him on the head rather than run screaming in terror? ~ Jerry Hayes, Dale & Co.

Andy Burnham is a Labour Party politician who was Health Secretary under the last Government and is currently Shadow Secretary of State for Health under Ed Miliband. He ran for the Labour leadership in 2010 and came fourth out of the five candidates. He is famed among the fandom for being a woobie in real life. He cares so much about things like the Hillsborough disaster or the NHS that he cries in public, forgets his coat on the train because he's so distracted with angst, and actually makes himself physically ill worrying about them, and he has enormous sad eyes that he deploys against the Government at every new policy launch. It's a mark of their strength of character that his Tory opponents are able to face him across the dispatch box without immediately caving in and altering their policies to reassure him, because ordinary mortals melt when confronted with his expression of sorrow and disappointment.

Life and Career[edit | edit source]

Early Life[edit | edit source]

Andy (right) with his family when he was 8 years old

Andy was boring in Aintree, Liverpool in 1970 to Eileen (a receptionist) and Roy (a telephone engineer). He was brought up in Culcheth and attending St Lewis' Primary School before moving on to St Aelred's Roman Catholic High School.

While at school Andy would often get into fights with his two brothers, but would stop in time to do his homework because he was a good boy like that. They were all alter boys and would get into fights because Andy wanted to be the one at the front holding the Communion plate.

He excelled at both cricket and football but had no regard for the damage that football studs can to do wooden floors. Although playing football was banned in the house, Andy and his brothers would rearrange the furniture when his Mum went out and play anyway. On one particularly memorable occasion fondly known as "Nungate", Andy tried to score a goal and his brother saved it, but the ball bounced off and broke the head off one of his Mum's fabourite ornaments, a little nun. In a show of his spin skills to come, Andy blamed his brother for the breakage since his brother had been the last one to touch the ball, even though it was Andy's kick.

Andy earned the nickname "Seven-Eight" at school because he could never remember that 7 x 8 = 56.

14 year old Andy in his cricket whites. Oh how different things could have been...

He joined the Labour Party when he was 14 1984 because of the Minsters' strike

Andy read English at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge and played on the university's football team.

Pre-political Career[edit | edit source]

Andy had many part-time jobs before university including a paper round and working in a pub and supermarket[1].

Early Political Career[edit | edit source]

And worked as a researcher for Tessa Jowell from 1995 - 1997. He joined the Transport and General Workers' Union in 1995. After the 1997 election, he was a parliamentary officer for the NHS Confederation from August to December 1997, before taking up the post as an administrator with the Football Task Force for a year.

In 1998, he became a special adviser to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Chris Smith, a position he remained in until he was elected to the House of Commons in 2001.

Parliamentary Career[edit | edit source]

Andy during university.

Andy was elected for the seat of Leigh in Greater Manchester with a majority of 16,362.

He was a member of the Health Select Committee from 2001 to 2003 until he was appointed PPS to the then Home Secretary David Blunkett. Andy was passed around in the PSS role until he was promoted following the 2005 general election to Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, with responsibilities for ID cards.

He then moved to the Department of Health in 2006 and to Chief Secretary to the Treasury in Gordon Brown's first Cabinet. In January 2008 Burnham was promoted to Secretary of State of Culture, Media and Sport where he got into a bit of a tangle with Shami Chakrabarti who threatened to sue him for libel.

In April 2009 he was heckled at the 20th anniversary memorial of the Hillsborough disaster. The next day he raised the issue in Cabinet and asked Gordon Brown to allow him to raise the issue in parliament. Gordon agreed and Andy's persistence resulting in the section Hillsborough Inquiry.

In June 2009 Andy was promoted to Secretary of State for Health where he stayed until the general election of 2010. During his time at Health, issues were raised over the unusually high mortality rate at Mid-Stafforshire hospital. Andy initiated an inquiry into the goings on and the report was generally critical. People were unhappy with the report and Andy's successor as Secretary of State of Health launched a more extensive public enquiry.

Following Gordon Brown's resignation after the 2010 general election, Andy stood in the 2010 Labour leadership election, standing on a platform of "aspirational socialism". He also advocated an end to unpaid internships, the creation of a National Care Service and called for inheritance tax to be replaced with a land value tax. Andy finished fourth and was eliminated on the second ballot with 10.41% of the vote.

In October 2010 Andy was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Education, opposing David Cameron's "free schools" policy and arguing in favour of comprehensive education. He didn't much like it in Education (probably because he had to put up with Michael Gove) and so just under year later Andy was moved back to Shadow Secretary of State of Health. While back in his old role he had to deal with more Mid-Staffs issues and reports as well as accusations that his team had edited Andy's proper wiki page to make it more favourable. People reading this page can be rest assured that Andy has not interfered with it.

Following Jeremy Corbyn's election as Leader of the Labour Party in 2015, Andy became Shadow Home Secretary, replacing Yvette Cooper.

Andy Burnham.1.jpg
Full List of Appointments
• PPS to Home Secretary David Blunkett (2003 - 2004)
• PPS to Education Secretary Ruth Kelly (2004 - 2005)
• Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Home Office (2005 - 2006)
• Minister of State, Department of Health (2006-2007)
• Chief Secretary to the Treasury (2007-2008)
• Culture Secretary (2008-2009)
• Secretary of State for Health (2009-2010)
• Shadow Secretary of State for Health (11 May, 2010 - 8 October, 2010)
• Shadow Secretary of State for Education (8 October, 2010 – 7 October, 2011)
• Shadow Secretary of State for Health (7 October, 2011 - 13 September 2015)
• Shadow Home Secretary (13 September 2015 - present)

2010 Leadership Bid[edit | edit source]

After Labour lost the 2010 general election, Gordon Brown stood aside and there was a leadership election to decide who would lead the party.

On 26 May 2010, Andy announced his intention to run for leader of the party. He ran his campaign around the message of "aspirational socialism", and in particular bringing an end to unpaid internships. He also highlighted the idea of a National Care Service and replacing inheritance tax with a land value tax.

Andy came fourth in the contest with 10.41% of the votes after the second round[2].

2015 Leadership Bid[edit | edit source]

On 13 May 2015 Andy announced his bid to become Labour leader[3]. He is widely viewed as the frontrunner, as his possession of the Health brief during the previous Parliament allowed him to endear himself to Labour activists and he spent much of his time in Cabinet lining up supporters for a leadership bid in Parliament in case Ed Miliband lost the election. His ambitions have been considerably helped by the rest of the leadership slate, as no one can figure out the point of Yvette Cooper's campaign, Jeremy Corbyn would make the party unelectable and the Blairites incomprehensibly decided to put up Liz Kendall. He is also helped by the fact that the three people who beat him in 2010 have for various reasons been eliminated from the competition.

Andy's Logo

Andy has a great campaign logo. People have pointed out to him the heart of "Labour" is technically "BO", to which Andy replied, "No, the heart is a little to the left." Ba-dum-tish.

During a Q&A with Mumsnet Andy was asked what his favourite biscuit was. He replied that he doesn't like biscuits and would rather have "beer and chips and gravy"[4].

When CLP nominations closed on 31 July, Andy was in second place with 111 nominations, just ahead of Yvette Cooper on 109.

On 12 September the leadership election results were announced. Jeremy Corbyn won the contest, with Andy coming second on 19.0% (80,462) of the first preference votes. When the result was announced, Andy's official campaign twitter account sent out a very succinct message:

Saying what Andy was probably thinking

Shadow Home Secretary[edit | edit source]

Once the dust had settled on the leadership election, the new leader Jeremy Corbyn asked Andy to be Shadow Home Secretary so that there would be at least one other person from the 2015 leadership race in the shadow cabinet and so it looked like not everyone hated the new leader. This plan had its drawbacks - Andy decided he no longer really gave a fuck so continues to stand up to Corbyn in shadow cabinet meetings all the time. In particular, Andy was instrumental in allowing a free vote for the Labour Party on the issue of extending bombing into Syria to fight ISIS/IS/ISIL/Deash/The Bad Guys.

Andy doesn't have any fucks left to give with people who are dicks to him on twitter:

Andy takes on the h8rz

Personal Life[edit | edit source]

Andy met his Dutch wife Marie-France van Heel at university. The couple married in 2000. They have a son and two daughters.

Andy plats for Labour's "Demon Eyes" football team and is a lifelong fan of Everton FC.

Ideology[edit | edit source]

His love of football appears to exceed his love of politics, as he has said that he would rather play for Everton than be Prime Minister, much to the horror of his press secretary.

Portrayal[edit | edit source]

In the Media[edit | edit source]

The press will not shut up about his eyelashes and Andy has had to state numerous times that he doesn't wear mascara.

The lefty press seem to like him well enough although he did attract criticism from his expenses claims when it was revealed that Andy was renting a place in London on expenses despite the fact that he owns a property within walking distance of Parliament anyway. He also attracted criticism over the Mid-Staffordshire scandal.

Andy on Question Time

In Fanon[edit | edit source]

Some believe he is an actual anime character. (Or possibly a fishman.)

Because he is so moe~ the fandom tends to let white noise take over the brain as they query his makeup and sigh at his scouse accent.

He is also very, very, very pretty, and this is somewhat annoying when a lolitican is trying to find political facts about the man, but a return from google yields only that he plays guitar, is photoed wet and with lots of puppies.

Fandom tends to like Andy. A fan of Andy is a "Fandy". Andy's Fandies include the Milifandom founder on twitter known as Abby.

Meme[edit | edit source]

Shipping[edit | edit source]

Andy's primary ship is Burnballs. Andy and Ed Balls became a broTP during the 2010 Labour leadership contest, where they enjoyed participating in activities like football and photo-op swinging together. In fics they tend to hang out together doing bro things drinking beer, watching football, making fun of Michael Gove, and having sex. Most of the time Ed tries to sooth Andy's angst although occasionally he is the cause of it.

References[edit | edit source]