He was looking for a job, now he’s found a job: Burnham, Manchester and the power of the Smiths

Straight after launching the radical idea of shifting part of the base of parliamentary power last week, Britain’s prime-minister-in-waiting posted on social media. It didn’t suggest policy, but pop music: “I left the north again, I travelled south again,” he half-sung, before smiling into the camera. “There’s a bit of a Smiths lyric there for you.”

Using musical taste as shorthand for relatability and status is a well-worn political trope, and it is central to Burnham’s ideology of Manchesterism, in which economic and social progress should come from higher ambitions for the regions, with the arts being a vital part of civic life. He regularly mentions his love of the Stone Roses, New Order and Oasis, but the Smiths recur often. Perhaps it is because the Smiths hark back to his youth in the 1980s, and his musical and political awakening in a decade of protest against a rightwing agenda. 

Burnham also launched his 2024 mayoral campaign at Salford Lads Club, known as the backdrop to one of the Smiths’ most famous photographs, on the gatefold sleeve of their 1986 album The Queen Is Dead. In front of the doors of a building which still serves young people today, they quietly redefined what a male gang could look like: singer Morrissey, in a heart-covered cardigan, playing (as he often did) with the feminine edges of fashion; guitarist Johnny Marr giving off a pretty, gritty glamour; and bassist Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce looking like unaggressive boys-next-door. Charismatic but free of machismo, Burnham is honing similar qualities in his chirpy social media and political persona. Markedly different in dress from the clinical, conservative suits of Reform, he’s one of the lads but not laddish, and much more welcoming. 

Referencing bands that have soundtracked voters’ formative years introduces a shimmer of romantic longing among an electorate. But today’s teenagers also love the Smiths, with old album tracks like Back to the Old House and This Night Has Opened My Eyes becoming viral sensations on TikTok, their lyrics still perfectly distilling the drama of adolescence. Their original teenage fans from the 1980s will now be approaching the age of the free bus pass – a time in life when people more regularly go to the polls. It’s worth noting that this group might also include floating voters: Smiths fans who might have continued to follow Morrissey despite his political turn to the right in the last decade (which included him wearing a badge endorsing the now defunct far-right political party For Britain, and saying that Nigel Farage “would make a good prime minister”). There are still lots of these fans: back in February, Morrissey sold out the O2. Perhaps Burnham’s use of music’s nostalgic power might win over a few of them. Also, as his tone grows more serious with the prospect of Downing Street looming, the pop-culture relatability may offer a bedrock for talking about more serious issues.

While Burnham regularly references the Smiths, he has retreated from specific mentions of Morrissey in recent years, although in a 2013 interview with John Rentoul  he did credit Morrissey’s interest in "warbling away about literature” with shaping his teens. This interest fostered his love of a subject that he eventually studied at Cambridge University. “Starting to listen to the Smiths,” he told the Huffington Post in 2015, “gave you a bit of an idea that you could aspire to bigger things beyond where you were.”

Burnham’s constant quoting of a band rich in references to books, film and wider pop culture also stands him far apart from Farage. Farage said in a 2015 BBC interview that he was “too busy” to read, listen to music or watch TV during campaigning; when he did, he liked “military histories and biographies”. 

The Smiths were proudly part of alternative culture, one of the first indie bands to have Top 10 hits and become known in the mainstream without compromising their roots. Burnham is clearly aiming for something similar with his political capital. He is also trying to articulate his working-class upbringing in a very different way from Keir Starmer, who also talked about how music shaped and lifted his life. Instead of referencing his teenage flute-playing in youth orchestras in a policy announcement, or a love of Scottish indie band Orange Juice on Desert Island Discs, Burnham posted about his favourite albums on social media – more of a signal of his personality than his politics.

Relying on the euphoric rises and swells of Manchester’s musical legacy also obscures parts of Burnham's mayoral reign, which now face greater scrutiny at a national level, including the construction of many luxury tower blocks in the city even as housing remained unaffordable for many. He announced a signature policy with the upbeat singing of a famous Smiths song; he’ll hope he never has to mention that most famous of the band’s lines: “And heaven knows I’m miserable now.”

Perhaps another Smiths lyric popular on TikTok might make more sense for him to sing, one that begins with a note of hope after surviving a tough period: “Good times, for a change”. The song’s title is also fitting for Burnham in this strange moment of political limbo: Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want.

Jude Rogers is a culture journalist, broadcaster and radio documentary maker. Her book, The Sound of Being Human: How Music Shapes Our Lives, was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year Prize and the Penderyn Music Prize.