Not since Tony Blair has Labour had a leader who’s as much of a political romantic as Andy Burnham. And yet behind the UK’s charismatic and confident new prime minister are two quiet colleagues who provide the necessary reality check, even if they’d never dream of eye-rolling the boss in public.

Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey and Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden are tribal and pragmatic party loyalists. And the most you might get is a sideways look when the PM talks airily about rolling back “50 years of neoliberalism” or indulges in blue-sky thinking about rejoining the European Union. Burnham does believe the state should work differently and has pitched his political tent accordingly.

But Healey, who maneuvered stealthily to defeat other candidates for the prized No. 11 role, and McFadden, a rare cabinet survivor from the Keir Starmer years, are the joint supporting walls of the new administration — the figures who will determine its success while others speak of grand 10-year plans to remake capitalism. While Labour is enjoying a “Burnham bounce” in the polls, voters are heading to the right on tax and welfare, and this pair understand that.

Having watched Blair at close quarters reinvent the art of relatable leadership and win three consecutive general elections, Healey and McFadden appreciate the good-vibes appeal of Burnham on social media. If resurfacing old footage of his clumsy moves on seems cringe-making to some, they intuit that there are millions of dad-dancers out there who vote. This PM largely does and says what he wants, and his claim to authenticity is his most effective calling card.

The chancellor’s idea of performative politics was to celebrate his first budget by downing a pint of beer in one gulp, a markedly male custom that harks back to the 1970s, the decade for which Burnham evinces nostalgia.

By contrast, McFadden is reliably buttoned-up. I once sat next to him at an awards ceremony where his young colleague Wes Streeting, now Defence Secretary, had an audience in stitches with racy jokes at the cabinet’s expense. No suggestion of a smile crossed McFadden’s stony face. Message discipline was maintained even in the midst of a Westminster bacchanal. In any government, there is a designated-driver figure — in Labour, that is the work and pensions minister.

Like Blair and Bill Clinton, Burnham has the “vision thing.”He talks freely about restoring freedom of movement for EU citizens to come to Britain, delivering electoral reform, upending Thatcherism and giving power back to the people from the Treasury.

Yet it’s Healey who’ll do much of the work on what is actually possible. When asked last week about closer ties with Brussels, the chancellor — whose Yorkshire constituency voted for Brexit — said he does not expect the UK to rejoin the EU in his lifetime, admitting that at 66 he is a tad old. He knows there are outstanding issues to settle first. Freedom of movement needs to be sold to the UK public, and democratic consent is needed for any reversal of the 2016 referendum. Then there’s tariffs and an estimated £35 billion ($47 billion) in annual budget contributions to Brussels.

The PM’s timing is unfortunate, too. Paris, Berlin and Frankfurt have been swept by riots, and the populist right is on the march across the continent. No matter, Burnham’s euro-friendly sentiments appeal to suggestible Liberal Democrat and Green voters.

A self-effacing team player like Healey was never likely to win plaudits for last week’s budget from metropolitan sophisticates. Some wanted Burnham to give the job to Ed Miliband, a North London intellectual and eco-evangelist kicked upstairs to the Foreign Office. Burnham instead plumped for a fellow northern Englishman, a cautious operator who learned his trade under Blair’s chancellor, Gordon Brown. Healey’s first duty is to keep the bond markets at bay in turbulent times.

The tepid response to his budget handiwork from bankers and hedge funders — “not so bad” — was exactly what he wanted to hear. One misstep would have diverted the financial traders’ attention away from France’s paralysis and debt pile. Just keeping this up is a huge job, especially when you look at the Treasury’s improbable fiscal framework that demands public spending cuts in the run-up to a 2029 general election.

Healey’s fate is largely outside his control, as well he knows. If President Donald Trump renews his assault on Iran after the midterms, all bets are off on energy prices and economic growth across Europe. The chancellor’s deflated fiscal cushion — £14.5 billion against projected government spending of £1.4 trillion in 2026–27 — would be vaporized.

So does Healy have a growth strategy? Although his maiden budget observed the Hippocratic injunction to “first do no harm,” it failed to offer up spending cuts or to make a bonfire of regulations. The chancellor said he wanted to give the voters “breathing space” by throwing them a few sops. He also gave his government a pause for breath before a comprehensive review of public spending late next year.

In fairness, the budget wasn’t only “steady as she goes.”Healey put on record the government’s commitment to its defense spending target of 3% of gross domestic product by the end of the decade. He also later declared that there will be a “reduction in the benefits bill” done “in a Labour way.”The PM’s office immediately raced to retract any suggestion that the government was “setting an arbitrary timetable or target.”Burnham is genuinely committed to welfare reform, but is averse to “brutal Tory cuts.”Picking up the pieces will be the 61-year-old McFadden, a former Blairite enforcer.

The welfare secretary usually operates below the radar, but attracted attention last year for observing in an email: “Every meeting I have [with Labour lawmakers] is, ‘Who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others?’ They’re asking the wrong questions.”He has been assiduously courting small groups of members of Parliament, pleading with them to face the facts on Britain’s crippling social costs.

One source of hope is that McFadden can reduce the welfare bill without cutting a penny. Although future projections look terrifying, welfare spending is still far below its 2011-12 post-crisis peak. Successful disability benefit claims have fallen from 81% to 53% in a year. The trick is to get claimants to undergo a proper work-capability assessment.

Burnham’s crowd-pleasing act demands the services of these two ministerial straight men. They are not richly endowed with imagination, but if the PM is a natural front man, Healey and McFadden look like a solid enough rhythm section.