The obstacles are all too plain: very tight money constraints, a rabidly right wing press, money from billionaires many of them foreign boosting Reform, anger among huge numbers of people who feel economically trapped or left behind. And then there are the seeds of racism and imperial nostalgia that have always been there, ready to be inflamed.
But maybe he's the man who can do it.

The one thing this Labour government has lacked, apart from common sense in policy making, is a salesman to sell said policies. Sir Keir, well intentioned and lucid as he might be, was a terrible representative of his own ideas. He made progressive initiatives sound grudging and good ideas underwhelming.
One feels that Andy Burnham will do a better, or at least more populist, job of showing Labour's policies to be for the benefit of the whole country. One thing he must do immediately, however, is tackle the problem of immigration and the small boats head on. This over-simplified yet highly relevant debate is damaging the cohesion of the country. Many people feel a genuine grievance about it and are easy prey for the far right wing parties who lack any real policies for social advancement of their own. He must take the bull by the horns and gain the public's trust again.