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Andy Burnham has been coined an 'aura-farming' Prime Minister as he chooses social media as the forefront for his comms strategy. James Hanson is joined by Labour activist Ellen Stewart to analyse Burnham's social media presence. Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp #jameshanson #andyburnham #ukpolitics #socialmedia #LBC LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK. Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/ Sign up to LBC’s weekly newsletter here: https://l-bc.co/signup
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From his black t-shirt to his note-free speech from Downing Street, Andy Burnham is presenting himself very differently to Sakhir Starmer
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And according to reports, the new PM is putting social media at the heart of his comms strategy
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That means more content like this. How old were you when you did this first job
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I was 17. How similar is the skill set of your first job and your job right now
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Not much. Sandy Burnham standing on a ladder while being interviewed about his first job
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And this. Who better, though, to endorse this policy than a special guest
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Oh, Prime Minister, you're stealing my job. Chief of bus fares. That's the PM announcing his two quid cap on bus fares
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with viral sensation Bus Aunty Bemi. So is Andy Burnham's focus on social media clever comms
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or just old-fashioned political spin? Well, 19-year-old Ellen Stewart is a pro-Labour content creator
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who goes by Politics Princess on TikTok. Ellen, thanks for joining us
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Now, you were invited to Downing Street this week for Andy Burnham's first speech as PM
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How did that come about? Well, it came about because when I was..
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when the Makefield by-election was happening, me and a group of others who have been posting on TikTok
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for about two years pro-Labour content, when we were in coordination with his team
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his digital communications team, in the run-ups of the by-election to just start almost a project
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to see how, if we could flood the zone with Andy Burnham edits, basically
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and see who we could reach, the kinds of content that landed
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build off our pre-existing following base. And we also went up to Makefield and did a campaign
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We did all the canvassing, the many thousand steps. But because of our work as campaigners
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we were invited alongside loads of other people, a lot of familiar faces were there at Downing Street
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but we were invited because of our capacity on the campaign. Yeah and it clearly a sign that Downing Street this Downing Street recognizes the importance of social media So tell us a little bit about the kind of content you been creating over the past few years So for the past few years I have been making Labour content which is mainly drawing on
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archival clips I started posting about the new Labour era kind of focusing on Tony Baird and
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Gordon Brown and their kind of fallout and and relationship and you know all the
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Was it kind of nostalgia for the noughties? Because I'm guessing you're of an age where you didn't remember it the first time around
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So were you almost like, oh, it was this halcyon age where we had economic growth and we had two big titans at the top of the Labour Party
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I think an element of it is that, and definitely for my audience and the viewership I get
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a lot of comments I get are very nostalgic for the time. I am reaching people who were alive during the time as well
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Obviously, there's going to be nostalgia involved in all of this. you know it's a very powerful emotion and um can get people on board and it makes people enjoy your
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videos so why does social media matter so much in a political sense everybody is getting their
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news from that now i mean it's millions and millions of young people majority of young
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people get their news from tiktok and not only are they getting their news there they're also getting
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their views and they are developing a sense of what their beliefs are through social media too
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and I think well it's not an even playing field like let's make that clear there is
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so much regulation that I personally think needs to happen with social media because of the amount
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of the way the misinformation disinformation can just thrive and how like prevalent echo chambers
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are but I think that it is so important because people aren't sitting down to read a manifesto
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anymore they are looking on TikTok especially young people they're looking on TikTok and seeing
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which candidates they quite like or a couple of policy policies and and he's about in a 15 second
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video we may not like that so sorry adam we just lost you for a moment there is andy burnham
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especially good at dealing with social media because akir starmer you know he wasn the most charismatic communicator andy burnham does feel more relaxed and i seen videos this week for example I think he did one yesterday that went out with John Healy where they in a pub and they ranking bar snacks
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And he does seem to have a more natural demeanour. Do you think he's just naturally got a better social media game
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than his predecessor? I do think his personality and his sort of unconventional way of going about things
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definitely helps the social media presence. There are a lot of videos that have come out in the last few years
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that I couldn't imagine Keir Starmer doing, or if he did do them, they wouldn't have landed very well
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I do think that that is definitely what makes it a lot easier
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But I also think, give credit where credit is due, he has an incredible team of people behind him
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who are obviously clearly really tapped into what works, what doesn't work, and what people want to see
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And what does work and what doesn't work in your view? because there's a really fine line
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particularly when you've got largely middle-aged politicians, between doing stuff that makes them appear relevant
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and then doing stuff that makes them appear cringe. How can they stay the right side of that line
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I think, yeah, it is a very fine line. It's very hard to balance
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I do think that you can do a combination of, you know, the Boss Auntie video
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That was a really good example of policy policy in combination with a cultural moment, someone that a lot of people know about
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I think that was a really good combination of fun and policy. I think the one yesterday
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the John Healy video, showing that bit of personality. I mean, the comments are full
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of incredibly, incredibly positive things. That's not saying everyone likes it. But if you looked
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in Keir Starmer's comment section the last few months, it was nowhere like that. And I think it
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can be cringe sometimes but i mean the there was the trailer it was almost like a trailer for number
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10 north which was a reference to uh the office intro and i think that was quite funny because a
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lot of people were comparing andy to david brent and all these kind of things i think leaning into
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that and kind of having not being so stuck up and sort of bureaucratic about it i think does land very well people And obviously you very pro but are there any other MPs or parties that you think have quite a good social media game
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Well, unfortunately, reform has an incredible one. And that is part of the reason why I am passionate about what I do and why I do think it is
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important is that reform and, you know, even restore in more fringe ways, whether it's
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coming from the actual party themselves I mean videos from Zia Yusuf or Nigel Farage there's that
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element of it which they are whoever's producing them they are very good um but I think also the
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kind of content the pro-reform content basically the reform version of me those kind of contents
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and the restore ones they also reach a lot of people and because they don't have to um be
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directly endorsed by Nigel Farge and reposting these but you can get away with saying some quite
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extreme things and associating it with reform or a movement even if they don't necessarily agree
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with it and it does reach a lot of people and I think to put our hands up and say oh you know
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we're trivializing politics you know we're making it into 15 second videos I think to say oh we're
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not going to engage in that because we don't agree with it is I don't think that's helping
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anybody if anything that's just helping reform they are doing it you know this is not a culture
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that we're creating we are responding to what the culture demands and for the people who go social
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media is already too dominant and we don't want our mps fixating on tiktok and instagram would
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your message be look you may not like it but it's the reality you've kind of got to get with it
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definitely i definitely think that it is the future of political communications and you know
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we're extending the vote to 16 and 17 year olds, you're gonna have to meet these people somehow
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you know, famously low turnout demographic. You want to be able to meet, like
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reach these people somehow. And I also think that, you know, people complain
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oh, so much is spent on social media by these MPs. I've done work in MPs' offices
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and I can assure you that it's really not that much time out there a day to film a 10 second video
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I think people are being a bit dramatic
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