AIBU to think Andy Burnham might call a general election soon?

Labour = Level down

A solid post - agree with much of what you say.

Personally, I think he should. I am well aware that we have a parliamentary democracy and that at a General Election, we vote for our local MP, and not for the Prime Minister. However, Burnham was not even in parliament a month ago.
However, the labour party have a massive labour majority, so he would be foolish to call one.
ie Morally should, but he won't.

Labour MPs did this. The media can't get rid of a PM. They could call for an election over and over. Council elections don't get rid of leaders. Thatchers first local council elections had worse results than Labour got. If the party had been united they had a huge majority that could have faced down the media and sat it out. Reform and the Greens are on a downward trajectory ( after the media exposed things about them too) . The only people who have caused the removal of Starmer are his own party, which he stated at his resignation speech. Labour are to blame for this. There are already factions turning on Burnham. They refuse to take a look at themselves and would rather blame literally anyone else for their problems. Usually the media or the electorate. Never themselves.

Agree, I cross posted with you.

Exactly, which is why he's gone out having put both party and Country first. Arguably, in the case of the country, of course. That is going to be a huge legacy when or if Burnham fails. That option he didn't take is always going to be a reminder. More pressure on Burnham.

Yes but by scene I mean the power of social media and its impact on politics. That is more recent than Brown or May, or Cameron.

It’s really picked up in the last few years, since partygate.

Or perhaps Starmer put his country first, because it would have been hugely destabilising to call a GE which would then end in a hung Parliament.

No way will he call an election. If he doesn't lose the election he would certainly lose a huge number of MP's. Yes many of them are inexperienced, truculent ideological and impossible to work with but he has to cobble together a cabinet somehow. Shabana Mahmoud and Wes Streeting are on very slim majorities and may well lose their seats. He probably needs to keep the threat of a GE in his back pocket if he wants to do the impossible and 'unite the Labour Party'.

They do indeed. On that we're agreed, and if the Tories ever get back in they'll do it too. It's part of the playbook now. I don't think that's a good thing, but like the other downsides of social media we appear to be lumbered with it until a critical enough mass of people ignore it. However, it remains a fact that this scene was already well established before Labour's last period of opposition.

That would have been madness though. Labour would have crashed out and Starmer holding the can on that outcome:

Starmer could quite easily have called one when Burnham won Makerfield. If he were as self-serving and egotistical as Burnham that would have been his fuck you to Burnham, the Back benchers and the rest of the backstabbers. As it happens, he has put his party first. That's going to stay in Burnham's face before he even gets going today.

The media and SM were gunning for Labour too at that time, it was not just the Tories, but they obviously got more as they were in Government. But the Tories didn't get anywhere near the same volley of vile smear stories and conspiracy theories. Those ramped up as soon as Labour got in, especially after the Southport murders.

Is Reeves at Starmer’s farewell or has she done another runner?

Edit: she’s there.

The same people who are saying stop SM used it as much as possible against the last lot. That’s now happening to them and it’s not wanted.

No they didn't, because the Tories were doing it before them. The scene existed already because the norm had already been established.

The social media environment is obviously much vaster now, but no one political party made that happen, and they're now all stuck with the effects of something multiple different Oppositions ushered in.

eta- also now I think of it there were def Lib Dems in 07 too. I expect they didn't get the coverage the largest opposition party did, understandably.

Completely separate discussion.

But for me anyone who knows anything about financials will tell you all Truss actually did was increase the rate of change of the interest rate. Rates were heading up anyway as can be seen by comparison of UK 10 year gilts with other countries such as Germany over the medium term rather than just the blip Truss created.

I won't defend Truss's implementation because that was very poor, but the ideas I don't think were unsound, and in fact have worked in other countries that are very close to home, she just went about the process wrong way.

The legacy of Truss is that she made (and is still making) politicians very scared of making major changes, in an environment where I think the country needs major change. Starmers downfall is very much to me based on him not being bold enough (coupled will hamstringing himself by pledging he wasn't going to raise income taxes), which I think can partly be attributed to fear of going the same way as Truss.

That's the difference though between actually understanding Truss and what happened, and jumping on the bandwagon to have a go at her, which is what most people seem to want to do.

Sorry to be a pedant, but it's losing .

I struggle with the notion that this government has been stable.

What with the u-turns and the leaks and the resignations etc.

He will be scared of loosing.
I would welcome a chance to vote for Kemi who seems to be the only one with common sense.

Yeh they did. The media and SM really became a destabilising force during partygate. SM is far bigger factor than Brown days. They’re now realising what it means as they’re in power.

They don’t like it but were happy to benefit from it, SM criticism won’t go away even though I’m sure they’d like to have more power over it.

Based on my sample size of 1 Conservative party member whom I know personally, they thought correctly that the billionaire wife was going to be a problem at election time, and thought incorrectly that Truss wouldn't be stupid enough to actually do all the shit she was promising.

Sorry it’s happened to you.

That’s the Tory membership for you.

I have never understood why Truss was chosen over Sunak. If she hadn't been a lot of financial pain could have been avoided.