Pakistan, July 22 -- Andy Burnham entered Downing Street promising to be a "circuit breaker" for a country exhausted by political churn. He is Britain's seventh prime minister since the 2016 Brexit referendum, a statistic that says as much about the erosion of Westminster's authority as it does about the fate of individual leaders. His first address recognised that weariness, admitted that politics had "not been good enough", and promised a new political and economic model.

The scepticism greeting the speech is understandable. PM Burnham has offered a 10-year plan, albeit with little immediate detail. He promised to decentralise power, restore stronger public control over essential services, reindustrialise Britain, expand council housin...