Is Andy Burnham Rewriting the PR & Personal Brand Playbook?
Writing about a politician is always a risk. Some readers will click away the moment they see the name.
But stick with me, because this isn’t about tax rates, Europe or how you vote. Whatever your view of Andy Burnham, from a comms perspective you have to applaud what’s happening. This is different. And anyone who leads a business, fronts a brand or builds a personal profile should be paying attention.
A Prime Minister who sounds like a person
Burnham’s team is running Downing Street comms like a founder-led brand launch. That means TikTok creator collaborations, walkthroughs of “Number 10 North”, Reddit AMAs, and a steady stream of short, human videos. Some have even called him Britain’s first creator Prime Minister.
A few moments that stood out:
The pub snacks video. Burnham blind-ranked pub snacks on camera. It passed five million views.
The Reddit AMA. After launching his ten-year programme, his team pointed people to a Reddit Ask Me Anything so the public could put questions to him directly.
The split-screen first day, and the homecoming welcome in Manchester. These were small, shareable moments rather than staged set-pieces.
For many people, TikTok videos look like cheap sideshows, a distraction from the serious business of government. I understand that. But Burnham is leaning heavily into owned content for a reason. It lets him tell the story in his own words before anyone else frames it, and it takes down the barriers between a Prime Minister and the public. That doesn’t make the press less important. It means he walks into those conversations with the story already set.
PR used to be seen mainly as exposure through media relations. Today it has to cover every part of a leader’s personal brand: how they speak, what they share, where they show up and whether it all feels like the same person. Burnham’s team seems to get that.
Starmer vs Burnham: a like-for-like
Keir Starmer | Andy Burnham | |
Tone | Formal, cautious, lawyerly | Upbeat, relaxed, optimistic |
On camera | Often described as stiff | Comfortable, self-filmed, unscripted feel |
Social media | Labour’s TikTok was described by one academic as “fairly random memes” | A coordinated, integrated strategy with a dedicated team |
Personality on show | Kept private life largely private | Everton, pints, DJing, Greggs orders |
Storytelling | Policy explained as policy | Policy told as a story (buses became David vs Goliath) |
Policy + content | Announcement first, content second | Format first, message inside it |
Public perception | Seen to have lost goodwill quickly | Retaining a reputation as an optimist and communicator (so far) |
Isn’t this just old-fashioned “politician with a pint” PR?
It’s a fair question. A politician in a pub with a pint is one of the oldest tricks in British politics, and nobody owns it more than Nigel Farage.
Whatever you think of his politics, he’s been one of the most effective communicators online for years. He has built a big audience with punchy videos on immigration, crime and social issues: 2.3 million followers on X, 1.5 million on TikTok and one million on Instagram as of August. Burnham was well behind, with about 730,000 followers on X, 450,000 on TikTok and 600,000 on Instagram, but he was catching up fast.
So is Burnham just borrowing the playbook? Partly. The pub is the same. But three things are different.
The tone. Farage’s content tends to focus on what’s broken and who’s to blame. Burnham’s is upbeat and inclusive, more “come with us” than “look what they’ve done”. James Lyons, Starmer’s former director of strategic communications, who also used to work for TikTok, said Burnham was taking a different approach from the Greens or Reform UK.
The job. Opposition is easier territory for content, because you can point at problems all day. A Prime Minister has to show delivery. Even so, a straightforward summary of five achievements in his first week got five million views on TikTok. “Here’s what we did” can travel too.
The risk. The pint only works if people believe it. After England beat Croatia this summer, Farage posted a pub photo in an England shirt. The Mirror’s deputy political editor Mikey Smith then asked why he was in the same shirt, the same pub and next to the same people as in photos from Euro 2024. It was a small story, but it shows how quickly a man-of-the-people image wobbles once people suspect it’s staged. Burnham faces exactly the same trap.
Meet the person who speaks internet
The digital operation is led by Abby Tomlinson. In 2015, as a 17-year-old student, she started the viral “Milifandom” campaign behind Ed Miliband. She’s been doing political social media for over a decade.
That backstory matters. The best social people I know started something for themselves, watched it blow up, and learned the language of the internet from the inside.
It’s also never one person. And it’s clearly working: the government has been advertising content roles in social creation, production and strategy, paying £40,000 to £80,000. You don’t scale what isn’t working.
Others have tried this, and it hasn’t always worked
Burnham isn’t the first politician to try an open, personal style, and it’s worth remembering how often it goes wrong.
Brand Rishi. As Chancellor, Rishi Sunak brought in Cass Horowitz to build “Brand Rishi”: slick graphics, Eat Out to Help Out, the hoodie photo, behind-the-scenes videos. It was genuinely innovative and built huge recognition. But Professor Tim Bale called it too slick, like an overproduced record. Less than two years into his premiership, the Conservatives had their worst result in the party’s history. The brand and the reality drifted apart.
Boris Johnson. His rumpled suits and chaotic charm were, by many accounts, a carefully cultivated image. It worked brilliantly, until the gap between persona and conduct became the story.
Labour under Starmer. The party did post on TikTok, but without a clear voice or strategy. Being on the platform isn’t the same as speaking its language.
Theresa May. During the 2017 election campaign, she was asked in an ITV interview for the naughtiest thing she’d ever done. Her answer was running through fields of wheat as a child, and the farmers weren’t too pleased. It was meant to show a softer, more human side. Instead it became a national joke.
Why didn’t it connect? It wasn’t really about the wheat. The moment came in the middle of a campaign so tightly scripted that she repeated “strong and stable” until it became a punchline, and the sketch writer John Crace nicknamed her the “Maybot”. One personal anecdote couldn’t undo weeks of soundbites. It just made the gap more obvious.
The lesson is that you can’t switch authenticity on for one interview. People judge you on the pattern, not the moment.
And Burnham isn’t bulletproof either. In August, The Times reported that a No 10 social media unit had advised him to tone down the “blokiness”: less football, fewer pints, no more bar snacks stunts. Reach isn’t the same as reputation.
My view? Take the feedback, but don’t sand him down. The moment you ask a leader to stop being who they are, you lose the thing that made people pay attention in the first place.
The playbook: what leaders can take from this
Whether you run a business, front a charity or you’re building your own profile, here’s what I’d take away.
But first, a reality check. Most of us aren’t Andy Burnham. Not everyone is comfortable chatting to camera in a pub, and that’s fine. Charisma isn’t the lesson here. His style works because it’s his. If you copy it, you risk looking like the politician in the borrowed shirt. The goal isn’t to be more like Burnham. It’s to be more recognisably like you.
Authenticity is what makes people listen. People can tell when they’re being sold to, and they switch off. A real voice, real opinions and the odd rough edge build trust in a way polished messaging never will. When people feel they know you, they listen, remember and share.
Tell your story before someone else does. Owned channels let you set the narrative first. When journalists, investors or customers come to you, the frame is already in place.
Find your format, not his. If you’re not a natural on camera, try writing, a podcast, a regular Q&A or a short weekly note. Quiet, thoughtful and consistent can be just as distinctive as loud and funny.
Your expertise is your personality. A leader who explains one thing really clearly will usually beat a forced joke. You don’t need to be entertaining to be worth following.
Consistency beats charisma. Theresa May shows that one human moment can’t undo months of scripting. Small and regular beats big and occasional.
Format first, message second. Find a format your audience already engages with, then put your message inside it.
Never fake it. One recycled pub photo shows how quickly a staged moment unravels. If it didn’t happen, or it isn’t something you’d really do, don’t post it.
Back it with substance. The snacks video landed because there was a real policy behind it. Content without a point is just noise.
Build the right team around you. Burnham has people who speak internet natively. You need the same, plus a PR lead who connects what you post with what the media writes.
Listen to the critics, but don’t lose yourself. Feedback on tone is useful. A committee turning you into nobody isn’t.
The real test is still to come
Pub snacks and Reddit threads are the easy part. The hard part comes with the moments that don’t fit a sixty-second video: dense numbers, tough choices, bad news and a room full of journalists waiting to pick it apart. That’s where personality alone won’t carry you.
So watch how he handles those moments. Does he explain the difficult stuff as clearly as the fun stuff? Does he face the lobby as readily as he faces the camera? If the content and the substance line up, this style will have proved itself. If they don’t, no amount of clever content will save it.
My bet? Being a confident communicator across every channel, from the Today programme to TikTok, will soon be part of the job description for any public-facing role. Burnham might just be showing everyone how it’s done.
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