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Original poster

To find Andy Burnham’s sudden rise to the top odd?

391 replies

GarlicBiscuits · 29/06/2026 19:32

A few weeks ago, I’d never heard of this man. A few weeks ago, he wasn’t even an MP.

Yet suddenly, he’s everywhere and going to be our next prime minister? What qualifies him for this role? It seems that all the Labour MPs love him. Why?

The whole situation is very odd to me… I’m not sure it’ll do Labour any favors at all.

OP posts:
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6
Clavinova · 30/06/2026 09:12

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 29/06/2026 19:48

He was Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Health Secretary years ago when he was last an MP.

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Yvette Cooper was Chief Secretary to the Treasury (and so was Liz Truss) - why can't Labour ever choose a female leader to serve as prime minister?

TemperanceWest · 30/06/2026 09:10

Clavinova · 30/06/2026 08:56

You should have checked - Liz Truss had 10 years' ministerial experience, Andy Burnham 5 years.

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Wow. All that experience and she still fucked up massively.

ExasperatedIs · 30/06/2026 09:08

I agree it almost seems fixed to me the timings of everything, very convenient

BrandiedAromatics · 30/06/2026 09:07

BIossomtoes · 30/06/2026 09:01

Much good that ten years did.

Yes, that is true And Sunak had more than twice the MPs backing him - but the membership went for Truss. Which is what I like to see and know. How did we get here? I like to know what they stand for and who supports them. Especially when high profile people like Rayner described Sunak as having no mandate.

What's good for the goose ....

MrsKeats · 30/06/2026 09:06

Are you joking? You had never heard of the mayor of Manchester. He is highly experienced and qualified.

Clavinova · 30/06/2026 09:03

Dameputtingonabraveface · 29/06/2026 20:19

All this faux naivety is ridiculous. Most people not had heard of Keir Starmer before he became leader of Labour, despite his high profile and mainly respected career when he was career as Director of the Prosecution.

As for the last government, only Boris Johnson was high profile and known due to playing the fool on Have I Got News for You and being an inefective and lazy mayor for London, known for dangling on a zip wire and getting bikes introduced. His grandiose plans to build bridges etc came to nothing (just like HS2). Sunak only came to prominence due to throwing the government credit card around during Covid, arguably the most generous level of welfare ever seen in the UK. Unfortunately, as with all credit, this needs to be paid back with interest.

Boris Johnson was ... an ineffective and lazy mayor for London

That's your opinion. YouGov ran a poll when he left office;

Mayor Boris: the public verdict
5 May 2016
52% of Londoners say he has done a good job, while 29% say he hasn't performed well.

BIossomtoes · 30/06/2026 09:01

Much good that ten years did.

Clavinova · 30/06/2026 08:56

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 29/06/2026 20:00

I haven't checked but that's probably a better record than Truss's. Not that that's setting a very high bar ...

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You should have checked - Liz Truss had 10 years' ministerial experience, Andy Burnham 5 years.

backformoreofthesame · 30/06/2026 08:56

Sudden? Really?

Paulrn · 30/06/2026 08:53

Basically Labour have 405 MP’s and they are admitting that not one of them is considered able to run the country so they have had to outsource.

Rubyslipperswitch · 30/06/2026 08:40

GarlicBiscuits · 29/06/2026 19:32

A few weeks ago, I’d never heard of this man. A few weeks ago, he wasn’t even an MP.

Yet suddenly, he’s everywhere and going to be our next prime minister? What qualifies him for this role? It seems that all the Labour MPs love him. Why?

The whole situation is very odd to me… I’m not sure it’ll do Labour any favors at all.

OP if you had never heard of a man who was the high profile mayor of Manchester for years and had been an MP and a Secretary of State before that then that is just you showing your ignorance.

BrandiedAromatics · 30/06/2026 08:39

Chilly80 · 30/06/2026 08:27

He's followed the Boris path to PM

Even Boris was back as an MP for a year and had a competitor for the leadership. Also, with Sunak - Boris decided not to stand and Mordaunt stood down, Sunak had been our Chancellor.

Yes, we knew who Burnham was but I do think honest questions should be welcomed not shut down.

Waitingfordoggo · 30/06/2026 08:35

I know who he is and what he has been doing prior to this, but I find it odd that we are hearing so much about him and absolutely nothing about the other people who might be interested in applying for the job. It feels a bit undemocratic, like it’s a foregone conclusion. He probably is the best candidate but that’s not the point.

BIossomtoes · 30/06/2026 08:33

People who object to a particular political party on principle. I did actually make that clear from the outset.

Bullandbear · 30/06/2026 08:32

BIossomtoes · 30/06/2026 08:30

I’ve read your previous posts elsewhere. That’s what I mean.

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Aside from being creepy, it doesn’t answer my question.

Who are ‘people like me’?

BIossomtoes · 30/06/2026 08:30

Bullandbear · 30/06/2026 07:55

‘People like me’.

Who are ‘people like me’?

The PLP would have backed Binface over toxic Starmer, so the hurdle was hardly set high, was it?

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I’ve read your previous posts elsewhere. That’s what I mean.

Chilly80 · 30/06/2026 08:27

He's followed the Boris path to PM

Thechaseison71 · 30/06/2026 08:12

GarlicBiscuits · 29/06/2026 19:32

A few weeks ago, I’d never heard of this man. A few weeks ago, he wasn’t even an MP.

Yet suddenly, he’s everywhere and going to be our next prime minister? What qualifies him for this role? It seems that all the Labour MPs love him. Why?

The whole situation is very odd to me… I’m not sure it’ll do Labour any favors at all.

Really He was definitely around in COVID times Probably one of the few that had a bit of common sense. Not sure how you can't of heard of him

Swiftie1878 · 30/06/2026 08:10

GarlicBiscuits · 29/06/2026 20:30

Thanks for the discussion.

So it seems that most of Burnham’s past MP work was when Labour weren’t even in power?

I’d say that’s fair. He could get things done when his party wasn’t even in power.
And he hasn’t come from nowhere. His work in Manchester has been amazing for years.

SpottyAlpaca · 30/06/2026 08:08

YANBU.

It’s very odd indeed, and nothing like this has happened before in British politics in my lifetime. I’m a ex-Labour member so I remember him being a cabinet minister in the last Labour government & standing in both the 2010 & 2015 leadership elections. I seriously considered voting for him in the latter. He has proved that he is by far the most popular centre-left politician in the country and that he can beat Reform in one of their top target constituencies, which is why the party has turned to him to dig them out of the mess they are in.

These events are a sign of desperation & panic by the party following the disastrous local election results. Starmer is deemed to have failed as PM, perhaps slightly unfairly, but largely because he is a hopelessly poor communicator. He has made mistakes, but so did Tony Blair, and at least Keir hasn’t taken us into an illegal war. He got the single biggest decision of his premiership, keeping us out of Trump’s Iran fiasco, right. Not that his critics in the right-wing press will ever acknowledge that.

LassoOfTruth · 30/06/2026 08:00

PistachioTiramisu · 29/06/2026 19:47

Mark my words - he will be even worse than Starmer. A very dangerous, left wing fanatisict.

Agree, he’s far left in the worst ways with terrible ideas. He’ll fail spectacularly too because there’s no way he’ll live up to the hype. The cynic in me would say he’s being deliberately handed a poison chalice a bit like Teresa May was.
We’ve had something like 6 or 7 PMs in the last decade and at least a few of them haven’t been well-known to the public until they were thrust into the premiership. Something in our system seems a bit broken!

Bullandbear · 30/06/2026 07:55

Locutus2000 · 30/06/2026 07:22

Arf arf.

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?

Bullandbear · 30/06/2026 07:55

BIossomtoes · 30/06/2026 06:46

The opinion of the parliamentary Labour Party. People like you wouldn’t approve of any Labour PM on principle.

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‘People like me’.

Who are ‘people like me’?

The PLP would have backed Binface over toxic Starmer, so the hurdle was hardly set high, was it?

babybythesea · 30/06/2026 07:53

JustTryingToBeMe · 30/06/2026 07:25

sadly, I too think this is the beginning of a full scale disaster. Someone who has sorted out buses in Manchester probably isn't quite ready for international negotiations or much else for that matter.
and before all you Mancunians pile in, I do
know he’s done rather more than that for Manchester but ……..

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He’s done rather more than that generally. Been culture secretary for a start.

Settlersa · 30/06/2026 07:53

InternetResearchedOut · 30/06/2026 06:50

@Settlersa , I do rather tire of the focus on him representing 'the North', when it appears to be referring to Manchester and surrounds.

As someone who hails from the North East originally (but now lives in the South), I was aware of him but that's mainly due to age,
from the Blair government. From my experience of returning there frequently to visit family, I'm not sure he's someone who is particularly relevant to the rural community of Northumberland (nor, I would imagine, to those of Cumbria or Yorkshire).

I'm getting fed up of it and DS lives in Manchester. I live in Northants which is in the East Midlands but feel that he sees us as 'The South' so part of what he sees as the problem and what about all the North above Manchester area.

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