Andy Burnham’s English degree may prove useful in a fractured Britain - Matt Bromley
It seems ironic that when the number of students studying English at university is plummeting, we welcome Britain’s first PM to have done so. Undergraduate enrolments in English dropped by nearly a fifth between 2019 and 2024 and several universities have started scrapping English courses due to low applicant numbers.
There are two main reasons for this: Firstly, with high tuition fees and average student debts exceeding £50,000, students worry about their return on investment because STEM graduates earn significantly more on average mid-career than English graduates; secondly, recent education reforms have heavily favoured STEM subjects at school and in post-16 and so the foundations are shaky. But, against this backdrop, we welcome Andy Burnham – the first resident of Number 10 to have read English Literature – having done so at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, graduating with a 2:1. It’s tempting to regard this fact as merely a footnote in the PM’s biography but perhaps it can tell us something about his politics, too.
For decades, the corridors of power have been disproportionately populated by PPE (Philosophy, Politics, and Economics) graduates. Consequently, the language of government has tended to be the language of systems: inputs and outputs, fiscal rules and targets, delivery mechanisms and frameworks.
English literature has a different vocabulary. It asks why people behave the way they do, how well they understand themselves and others, and how societies construct stories about who they are and who they want to be. And Burnham is often praised for possessing precisely this sort of emotional intelligence. For example, in the aftermath of the Manchester Arena attack, the city’s bishop, David Walker, remarked on Burnham’s ability to be fully present with people and to connect emotionally in ways that cannot be manufactured by political advisers.
Burnham has spoken about how, whilst he was at university, Tony Harrison’s poetry – its northern voice and examination of class – helped change his understanding of what literature could be. Harrison showed him that poetry could speak in a Leeds accent about ordinary lives. And Burnham’s speeches fit this mould, too: he often talks about place, belonging and community.
English Literature also teaches close reading; as well as ambiguity and argument. This is important because analysis without empathy can become technocracy; empathy without analysis can be mere theatre. Studying English has given Burnham a particular intellectual vocabulary: an instinct to interrogate language, to recognise the power of metaphor, to listen for what is being said beneath what is being spoken, and to understand that words have consequences beyond their immediate meaning.
Burnham’s English degree matters not because reading Shakespeare magically produces wisdom, nor because PPE somehow prevents it. Degrees are not destiny, after all. But an English education certainly teaches you that every story has another side, that every character has a history, and that every seemingly simple conflict contains complexity.
For a country as fractured as Britain, Burnham’s English degree may prove an unusually useful education
Matt Bromley is CEO of bee and chair of the Building Equity in Education campaign. He is the author of numerous books on education. Find out more at http://bee-online.uk