Burnham's eyelashes easy to tease, says cartoonist

A political cartoonist has said he is looking forward to spending more time drawing Andy Burnham.

The Northern Agenda's Graeme Bandeira, from Middlesbrough, said Burnham – who will become prime minister on Monday - had several features which a cartoonist could exaggerate, including his "fantastically chiselled" haircut.

Bandeira said Burnham's emphasis on his Manchester roots and "man of the street" image was also easy to tease.

"Hopefully he might start growing his hair like Liam Gallagher or something," he said. "That would be good."

Bandeira said Burnham's big eyelashes, "blocky" facial shape and the fact he smiled a lot made him relatively "straightforward" to draw.

He said the politician's team had already asked for a few prints of one of Bandeira's cartoons depicting the Makerfield MP after his by-election victory.

Bandeira - who has captured the characteristics of seven prime ministers from Gordon Brown to Sir Keir Starmer - said in general he found that politicians liked being made fun of by cartoonists.

"I think they would be offended if they weren't being drawn," he said.

Bandeira said he still believed there was value in political cartoons in the digital age.

"If you scroll on your newsfeed and you see a cartoon, I think a lot of people stop and look at it.

"It's meant to captivate that audience and draw them in and make them think," he said.

But ultimately it's about making people laugh, he said. "That's the key."

And what for the outgoing prime minister?

"I've enjoyed drawing Starmer but I think on some of the cartoons the ink isn't even dry yet, because it's been that quick," Bandeira told BBC Politics North.

"When he first came on the scene, he was quite ambassadorial, great on the foreign stage and it was hard to actually ridicule him because he's new kid on the block.

"You can't go hard early, you just have to watch to see what unfolds and sadly his demise has been quite quick. Whether or not it's justified, that remains to be seen but I have certainly enjoyed drawing him and certainly enjoyed ridiculing him."

Regardless of ridicule, Starmer is the proud owner of a copy of Bandeira's work.

It depicts him dressed as Winston Churchill, in a nod to comments made by US President Donald Trump over his refusal to allow the use of UK airbases for the initial US-Israel strikes on Iran. "Unfortunately, Keir is not Winston Churchill", Trump told reporters.

The cartoon was later spotted on Bandeira's social media feed and he was asked to send a couple of copies. The cartoonist also got to meet him at a recent event.

"He has kept one and he has sent a signed one back," he said.

"When I met him recently, that was my in to go over to him and thank him and say 'thank you for the cartoon', and he remembered it straight away.

"I think he was quite pleased with that one."

Additional reporting by Chris Robinson

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