Burnham and Badenoch Revive Red versus Blue Politics as Reform Land ‘Gobsmacking’ Donation
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Burnham and Badenoch Revive Red versus Blue Politics
… as Reform land ‘gobsmacking’ donations
Published: 12 September 2026, 11:07 BST
Updated 1 minute ago
By
Laura Kuenssberg
Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg
Look closely at the posters, placards and online posts. Your eyes aren’t deceiving you if Labour’s red seems a little deeper and the Conservatives’ blue a little truer.
Politics seems to have found a new rhythm, one that feels a little familiar, despite Reform’s jaw-dropping new donations putting it back in the headlines today. For the avoidance of doubt, the scale of that initial £36m gift to Nigel Farage’s party alone is like something from a different political universe.
"It’s a gobsmacking sum," a senior figure involved in running successive election campaigns for one of the big parties tells me. That was even before another Reform donor pledged to match that astonishing sum with another £36m, saying the first donation had provoked his "competitive spirit".
But one cabinet minister is enjoying what they see as a newly obvious difference between Labour and the Tories. "It’s clarifying," they say, a clear gap between Labour and the Tories’ "sense of purpose and values."
A member of Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch’s top team tells me, "Normal jogging is reasserting itself. Hopeful we’re at the start of a more straightforward, routine moment in politics after years of craziness, with smaller parties vying to shove the traditional tribes out of the way."
The standout moment was at the despatch box this week when Prime Minister Andy Burnham declared that national security couldn’t come at the expense of social security—a phrase immediately seized on by the Tories, interpreting it as the PM saying he’d never cut welfare spending to pay for defence.
One senior conservative said: "It was a real line in the sand. We could never have imagined Sir Keir Starmer saying that."
The party seems cock-a-hoop at a line they can use again and again, asserting the prime minister cares more about welfare than guarding against war.
But there is a positive atmosphere in No 10 too, one source telling me that the face-offs between Badenoch and Burnham have "breathed new life into the Labour versus Tory dynamic."
How can they both be happy when ultimately politics is a contest and there can only be one winner in the end?
Well, on the security spat, Burnham’s backers are adamant he does want to cut welfare spending, and find more money for defence. How does that stack up with his words this week?
I’m told No 10 will explain in more detail his belief that security also means secure communities, which aren’t created by slashing benefits.
Crucially, they reckon while cutting welfare might appeal to some voters, "once you dig into the ‘who’ and the ‘how’ of doing that, public support wavers, and when Kemi talks about housing benefit cuts, public opinion goes all over the shop."
They even cite that moment as evidence that the prime minister is "happy to grab thorny issues and put himself at the centre of them," as he did with the early release of prisoners.
… continue text as original
