Burnham unopposed & likely to be PM by mid July

“I have no idea if plans Burnham has would shock the bond market. My point was that a new leader moving very quickly to implement big change carries its own risks.”

So @SheilaFentiman - why change leader at all then when there will be another election really quite soon and changes have to be delivered before then! I mean why put us all through more political uncertainty, yet again, in one of the most dangerous times in recent living history. It is truly baffling.

@Araminta1003 you are “replying” to things I haven’t said. Again. Please stop doing that.

I have no idea if plans Burnham has would shock the bond market. My point was that a new leader moving very quickly to implement big change carries its own risks.

@SheilaFentiman - OK I see what you are saying. You think he might have some clear plans but they would possibly shock the bond markets/public and you believe people are working behind the scenes at it, very hard. And you think a Rachel Reeves style Treasury drip for weeks will be how it is delivered.

The problem is we are in very unsafe times. Not having a steady PM is really of grave concern to some of us and we want to see Defence upped, and not dismissed as some Tory obsession. Because we genuinely do believe there is a real problem.

Quickly, but not insanely quickly (see Liz Truss, who was so obsessed with making big changes in the remaining parliamentary term, she shot herself - and the country - in the knees)

Burnham needs to get going very quickly.
Look at the US, at some point the US Government is going to turn on the tech bros (like Putin did on the oligarchs) and the massive AI bubble is going to burst. Everybody fears this, they just do not when exactly and what the fall out will look like, whether worse than the 2008 financial crash. Remember the US securitisation heating up just before the massive crash. We really need the financial planning and defence planning and pronto. We need investment in our own safer tech companies with inbuilt regulation.
If we are lucky it will be a slow mo burst, if not, it will be awful.

Burnham said he will cut welfare to fund defense. If he delivers that quickly he could well attract voters back from Reform.

Agree and change from what? The whole last manifesto and campaign was headlined by change change change. If he plans to change the change manifesto then the electorate has more a right to want a GE and have the chance to vote. Or does he mean that he will do all he can to deliver the change that Labour promised at the last GE. Either way, he’s going to have to go a bit of detail at some point as right now it’s just (good admittedly) political speeches and sound bites

Good point - maybe he's more suited to US ambassador.

Hmm...

Josh Simons was the guy who commissioned an intrusive report into two Times reporters who were investigating an organisation he was involved with.

I'm not convinced that there was not a scandal waiting to envelope him and he jumped before it did.

Sorry you are right I’ve got muddled 🙈. I was thinking of the regional party list where you vote for a party but who you get depends on how many from the list get a seat and also depends on the order they’re listed. My apologies!!!

@SheilaFentiman - the issue is the EU negotiations next month have had to be postponed because of Burnham (which could have been a motivator for growth) and the defence plan due to Healey resigning.
The two very most urgent issues facing the country defence and growth, surely Burnham must have an immediate plan on those at least and what he is doing and it has to be delivered quicker than Starmer would have done. Otherwise why the heck is he there? To fight the Bogeyman’s Bloody Shadow? What a mess!

Jobs for the boys in whatever form. They are all the same.

I very much doubt it. He’ll be back in the Commons at some point. Meanwhile I foresee a job in. Downing Street in his immediate future.

It seems to me the Labour Party as a whole have Imposter Syndrome. Hence why Starmer seemed to be like a rabbit caught in headlights following the huge election win in 2024 and NO PLAN! And just blamed the Tories and as soon as he stopped with that, he blamed the Bogeyman Nigel Farage (and whatever other bogeymen are coming out of the woods, like Lowe etc) like little earwigs

But none of them have a PLAN. We the public deserve a bloody plan immediately. Starmer was just getting going somehow, and got unseated, For what?! Please make it make sense. It is the 10 year anniversary of Brexit and my wedding anniversary and I am rageing
We were promised change from the Tories, Labour have delivered zero so far. They have no plan at all. It is all round shocking. We all deserve so much more, no matter who we vote for!

I'm sure Josh Simons will be popping up in the Lords very soon as his reward.

Andy Burnham gave a smarmy speech when he won Makerfield (the makers of the swamp more likely at this point). In that speech, he talked about CHANGE - so clearly he must have some very clear plan for CHANGE and why has it not been published yet in detail including on Defence, Economic Growth.
He literally deliberately unseated Starmer because Starmer’s change was apparently too slow.
So surely against that, he must be publishing his big Master Plan for Change Immediately?!

He wouldn’t get the necessary 81 letters of support. Nobody would.

It's shocking that of the 400 plus Labour MPs not one of them was deemed by their peers to have been high enough caliber to be PM. All hail the King of the North.

I can see that view, however Josh Simons resigned in order to give Burnham a stab at becoming an MP purely in order to go for Prime Minister.

Of course there was no guarantee, but to avoid that question in the way that he did is disingenuous. If Starmer had been doing a stand up job, and the Labour ratings were good, I doubt if Simons would have resigned, and Burnham would happily have gone on being Mayor.

I realise too that there is a fine line between confidence and arrogance, however, honesty would have been quite a good approach. I think he avoided it as he didn't want to appear to be self serving, however that didn't work. Not for me anyway.

About the only thing he has above Starmer is more experience in politics, as evidenced by his ability to answer questions without actually answering the question. Starmer was a quick study though, and got the hang of that pretty quickly.

I think it is a shame that Starmer hasn't been able to leverage the successes they have had, then again, his ability to score an own goal will usually overshadow in the eyes of the critics.

Hmm... but he couldn't run until he was an MP and people on this thread have already described him as coming across as smug etc. So it's six of one and half dozen of the other whether he was being slippery to not say he wanted to run vs being arrogant to presume he would win the by-election and hence have a chance of running for leader.

I hold no particular candle for Burnham, though I think he will be a little better than Starmer in some ways - politics is communication and persuasion, to a large extent, and he's probably better at that. But I'm not expecting a step change - the above is about the "business" of being a politician ie what is annoyingly evasive to one voter would be annoyingly smug to another voter if the answer was changed.

That was a councillor, not an MSP I thought?

I don't recognise your description of the AMS system used in Scotland (and Wales). Most candidates are single district candidates so you know exactly who you are voting for. It is only the "additional members" who are added to make things proportional on a party basis - but even then you know who they are going to be before you vote. Candidates are obviously selected by parties, just the same as anywhere else.

Maybe Al Carns will take one for the team

His intent to run for the leadership has been clear for months

I agree, this is how it has appeared to me, and yet Burnham was still dancing around the issue on Question time a week or so ago. I'd have more respect for him if he'd just answered directly and said "yes, I am going for the top job, for these reasons...".

But he didn't, which makes him appear more slippery and untrustworthy in my humble view.

Completely agree with you. I’m quite shocked the pushback and parroting that we are in a parliamentary democracy and this is fine. It’s madness and even if technically allowed, it is insulting the electorates intelligence not to acknowledge how different this is.

I said upthread that rules need to change such that only an mp voted in at the last election should be eligible as at least that would give some connection to the previous GE.

But on balance because we all know that whoever is leader influences GE voting, that a mid term change other than for say death or ill health should happen. Again I know it’s not our system but if the system isn’t working you change it, just like a business would or should.

So many pp here saying Andy has no experience and how easy it is being a Mayor compare to being a PM.
Andy Burnham has been in Politics in one way or another most of his life. Special Advisor, Trade Union and most importantly He has served in Shadow Cabinets and In a Government Cabinet. He knows how Westminster works and he knows the relationships of different roles. Starmer had to learn much of those after he got the job.

He will still have to tell us how he will finance Defence and how to get the economy growing. Those problems are still there and will remain for a long time.