Fiscal hawk or big spender – what kind of chancellor will John Healey be?

John Healey strides out for his first cabinet meeting as chancellor on Tuesday. He has largely avoided being aligned with any faction. Photograph: Chris J Ratcliffe/Reuters View image in fullscreen John Healey strides out for his first cabinet meeting as chancellor on Tuesday. He has largely avoided being aligned with any faction. Photograph: Chris J Ratcliffe/Reuters Fiscal hawk or big spender – what kind of chancellor will John Healey be? The diligent, popular, unexpected pick for the Treasury has been given a straitjacket – and the job of funding the PM’s policy promises UK politics live – latest updates O n the frequent occasions that John Healey would travel abroad as defence secretary, he was so determined to keep working he would get the crew to tether a desk to the inside of his military aircraft so he could read his papers. His diligence is one reason why Andy Burnham, the new prime minister, made Healey his unexpected pick for chancellor on Monday. Allies say others include their shared commitment to re-industrialisation and devolution. After an occasionally vicious briefing war between allies of other potential candidates, the hardworking Healey is seen as a safe choice who can unite a fractured party while not scaring the markets. But many who know him say the new chancellor is more ideologically driven than he may seem, and that Burnham will come unstuck if he treats his most senior minister as little more than a factotum. “This is being billed as equivalent to Gordon Brown appointing Alistair Darling,” said one Labour official, referring to the former prime minister’s choice of chancellor, who was initially seen as someone who would simply do the bidding of No 10. “But it turned out Darling had views of his own which did not always chime with Brown’s – Andy has to avoid making the same mistake.” The decision to appoint Healey was arguably the most important Burnham made on his first day in Downing Street. The new chancellor will be tasked with finding money for the prime minister’s various policy promises, including higher defence spending, taking utilities into public control and finding ways to cut voters’ living costs. Burnham has promised not to raise income tax, VAT or national insurance, and to stick to the last government’s borrowing rules, placing his chancellor in the same straitjacket that hampered his predecessor, Rachel Reeves. Healey is in an almost unique position to take the tough decisions required while keeping Labour MPs onboard. Since entering parliament in 1997, he has largely avoided becoming attached to one faction or another. Although he served in the Treasury for five years while Brown was chancellor, he was always respected by the opposing Blairite camp. More recently, he has successfully bridged the widening gap between allies of the former prime minister Keir Starmer and those on the soft left agitating for his removal. View image in fullscreen John Healey addressing new Treasury colleagues on Tuesday. He