Do you want a change of leader?

And let's not forget it's not just the Tories who had "unelected" prime ministers. Gordon Brown became prime minister without a leadership election when he pushed out Blair and no one stood against him! Just like Sunak, again, no election, but no one stood against him. It's not party political when both major parties have done exactly the same thing.

I agree. I'm old enough to remember the woeful British Rail, and waiting months for Post Office Telecommunications to get around to installing our first home telephone line.

People seem to forget that the public voted for privatisations, demutualisations, etc. It wasn't just Maggie doing it on a whim. It was part of party manifestos, and agreed enthusiastically by the public. Same with "mutual" societies such as life insurance/pension firms and building societies - it was their "members", i.e. customers who voted for demutualisations as they wanted their windfall profits!

But all parties change leaders, why make it party political?
You recall the last changes under the conservatives? And that the Lib Dems made the coalition decision?

Politics is about elected people making decisions.

Whether I like Burnham or not, he's no less justified in becoming PM than someone who was already elected by a single constituency .

Privatisation doesn't work with industries where they tender every 5 years or more. There's no competition or choice for the consumer. I can't decide to get a different branded train this morning. I can't turn off one water company's tap and choose the other. It's not about regulation, it's about those the premise of privatisation being completely unsuited to the problem at hand.

such a shame that it has come to this. Utterly pointless resignation. Whatever your political persuasion there is something really bizarre that a decent fair man has to bow to the demands of pure media froth. Chris Mason and Laura K will be delighted. They can melodrama all summer long now. At least their jobs are safe. Not sure that’s going to be the case for the rest of us as a result of the political instability that will now follow. So sad.

I agree with you, fully, on this self serving short term patches that they seem addicted to.
I mean, people seem to fall for that. They seem to love basking on this impotence, hopelessness vacuum, with only immediate "solutions". And blaming others. Of course. Plenty of others to blame!

But, I think it is still possible. Challenges are actually opportunities. Huge ones! Here hoping for someone who can see that and be willing to lead the country!
I have not lost hope. And I will not.

@Watercooler Some privatizations are not great but I guess you are too young to remember the woeful British Rail and other nationalized industries that were starved of investment for decades because the governments of the day would not invest! It’s easy to look at a few companies and see a disaster but its regulation that is at fault. The premise that the market invests isn’t wrong. The problem is the onward sale of the companies and the failure to regulate how they operated. I don’t want every treasury round to be about what money nationalized industries get. It’s bad enough with the NHS taking up far too much of our shrinking resources. We simply don’t have government money to invest at the levels needed.

It's the privatisation fuck ups that have cost this country dearly. Most aren't even reported or known about in the wider press but if you have access to some of the data on this you'd be shocked. Billions of pounds spent on trying to rectify failures of private companies.

@MushMonster Never going to happen! I don’t entirely agree hard working is the right criteria for politicians. They all are. The bigger issue is lack of ideas for the long term. They are short term plotters. None have the intellect to bring about the changes we need because they all listen to loud minorities and expect others to pay and pay and pay. The position of Burnham is just “nice guy” with no policies! It’s frankly appalling!

No. We need stability now.

I'm not sure how Burnham would handle Elon Musk let alone Trump.

Look at the comments on one of the other pages on this about "2tier Keir" and him seemingly being complicit with rape gangs. He wasn't of course but the mud has stuck. I'm not quite sure what they will get Burnham on but it's going to be something

I'm really disappointed labour playing party politics rather than running the country. Kier Starmer is a decent man with some decent plans. I think he's done a lot of good in a bad situation with an awful legacy from the tories.

I like AB for Manchester mayor or even to put in at the end of 5 years and take through GE. I don't think switching now is a good idea and will guarantee labour will lose next GE.

Absolutely not. Its ridiculous.if we think we are badly off now, wait til that man gets in.

It will be interesting to see what happens to the man with a young family forced tp resign to make way for Mr Burnham.

The country is not a football team requiring a revolving door of managers.

However, Rachel does need to go, and also her advisors.

I’ve got a suggestion for Starmer to make change and be decisive- just reverse those stupid manifesto commitments about not raising tax. We live in a different world than before we needed to massively increase defence spending. So start with that, get some money flowing in, and take it from there.

Well, so then the problem is any politician trusting Mandelson and similar people. Let's get rid of them all. This is the chance.
Enough is enough.
There are plenty of honest hard working people out there. Who know what a tender is. And that they know how to use a diary for ALL of their meetings.
Oh, and that are able to disclose all the paperwork when demanded by Parliament! I forgot that one.....

I don’t want a change of leader.

Liam Byrne, outgoing Treasury secretary, wrote to the incoming Chief Secretary to the Treasury “I’m afraid there is no money”

It is somewhat hilarious that some people still think that note was serious. Or at least pretend to think so and present it as such, imagining that people on MN are too thick to know the truth of it.

It’s a terrible look to resign. It’s a terrible plan to coronate and to not have a GE. And it’s a terrible time to call a GE. I can’t understand why this is even being contemplated. So what if Andy Burnham is flavour of the month? Manchester’s success is great but nobody is saying this can be replicated nationally. We won’t be allowed to borrow the equivalent needed nationally to invest so heavily in growth- which is a shame but it’s the reality.
Also growing an underinvested city which already has some good infrastructure is very different from wider crumbling Britain where small towns and villages are completely falling apart from lack of investment and lack of affordable reliable transport. Once the final salary generation of wealthy retirees die off and won’t be propping up these local economies, places like these will be even more ruined without serious government support.

Burnham’s an MP now, bring him into the cabinet, fine, see what he can do. Starmer is having his ‘come to Jesus moment’ right now, with everyone talking about a possible resignation. He will understand now that he have to work better with the squabbling factions in his party that he’s been trying to cut out, if he wants to survive as PM. That’s part of good leadership. I hope he can manage it.

But if Starmer goes, this would be the sixth PM resignation since Cameron’s, almost exactly 10 years ago after the unexpected Brexit result. (Unexpected to him, I mean because he lived in a such mega privileged and well-informed bubble. He didn’t expect it because he was doing well out of the economic status quo, whereas the Leave areas were poor and understandably pissed off)

Cameron fucked up the family bakery business to appease the extremists in his own party that he didn’t have the balls to take on, not understanding how many voting people would vote Leave just to stick two fingers up at Cameron’s economically disastrous coalition and Tory gov inflicting austerity on the UK. So then the next morning Cameron fucked off leaving us all to try to clear up the mess he’d caused due to internal party squabbling. Shameful.

Starmer is a better PM than that, I really hope. Let’s stop kidding ourselves about any possibility of an ‘orderly handover’. We’d have to have a GE. Which is terrible timing for the national interest. So Starmer needs to stay on.

@MushMonster Loads of people trusted Mandelson! Obviously Starmer was wrong but political decisions often are. Like partying Boris Johnson! No one is perfect and Burnham won’t be either!

I think you might very well be right. All this talk about Burnham being massively left wing is for the birds. He really isn't and never has been.

UK needs to develop a long term memory, for the sound of it!
I am sure you all have read the reports on Starmer and Mandelson, and Mandelson-Palantir-Starmer. So? It is clear this is Starmer's own goal. All his doing.
I cannot comprehend how him or anyone would think he can just stay after this.
So it is not that we want a change of leader, it is that Starmer sold his soul to Mandelson and Mandelson will soon be in court for sharing sensitive information with Epstein. Plus he has financial ties to Palantir.
All Starmer had to do is follow the flipping rules and stay away from Mandelson and people like Mandelson. Pretty easy, if you ask me.

A steady ship?

One that is steadily changing direction every five minutes.

@Watercooler Your political history is woeful. What happened when Labour were defeated in 2010? Liam Byrne, outgoing Treasury secretary, wrote to the incoming Chief Secretary to the Treasury “I’m afraid there is no money”. The Conservatives came in with high borrowing and a high fiscal deficit. Nothing like now of course! The 08/09 crash had caused problems. The idea the Conservatives caused all the issues is ludicrous. There was an attempt to reduce government spending but spending didn’t stop.

We now have yoyo politics because MPs don’t agree. It’s an issue that comes with a large, inexperienced, majority. They are not all buying in to government policy and have their own agendas. The coms had similar issues over Brexit. The agitators are the ones we should be angry about. They have destabilised various prime ministers now, for various reasons. Essentially they are a bit of a rabble and only want their version of Labour. It’s nothing about what is good for the country, it’s what benefits them. They want to look good with the harder left of their constituents and are happy to ignore higher tax payers and business interests. The latter groups are the ones who pay for services and servicing our huge debt. These MPs are essentially unable to understand economic reality and now there truly is no money. We have maxed out on borrowing and need substantially more defence spending. These MPs think Andy Burnham will deliver socialist utopia! No chance if labour want to win the next election.

Every time a political party wants to change horses mid stream there should be a general election. Otherwise you may end up with a leader pushing for policies that do not chime with the ones they were elected on.

I don’t think it’s rubbish at all. It’s a good analogy!