What is so great about Andy Burnham?

[jeanne16]

Just that really. I keep hearing what a great job he has done as mayor but never hear any examples of what he has done.

Btw Boris Johnson was quite a successful mayor of London and we all know how that turned out.

You forgot has massive glasses!

Or maybe that Corbyn is the most popular leader Labour has had since Tony Blair

Corbyn was popular amongst people who voted Labour anyway. He got lots of young urban types to vote rather than not vote. He did not have broad appeal. Yes FPTP but you fight the election your in, not the election you want to her in in fantasy land. He wanted the adulation of his fans but didn't want to bother engaging other people. He was then completely ineffectual and absent during one of the most important political events of a generation. He had no one left to blame when he started his own party and has made an absolute shit show of it. God knows what an ineffectual disaster he would have been as PM.

It’s very annoying that @jeanne16 hasn’t come back to justify the comment that Boris was a good mayor! Evidence please? He was attention-seeking and profligate.

No Boris wasn’t a good mayor of London. I don’t know about AB. This whole thing is going to backfire. He should have kept his head down and got on with his job.

The man gets shit done.

The important shit. The shit that matters to people who have nowt or very little.

He is personable, not arrogant or full of hot air.
A doer.

Most importantly though, he is not far removed from the everyday citizen so he gets the grass roots important matters.

I am curious about his policies and priorities on a much bigger scale. Being mayor is one thing, PM another.

I agree that he has done a good job as Mayor. But it does amuse me that all you have to do is give an Oxbridge SPAD a Scouse accent and he becomes a man of the people. I suppose it’s better than giving a multi millionaire public school educated city trader a pint and a cigarette and achieving the same effect….

Getting a few things done in Manchester isn’t being pm! No defence needed in Manchester! Or concerns about Russia, national economics and taxation, the nhs, housing, farming, business, education etc etc. Being King of Manchester is a tiny job by comparison and not open to remotely the same detailed scrutiny. He will not be able to just pontificate about his favourite projects in no 10. Just because he’s “northern” doesn’t give him any extra ability. He peddles it for his own ends. Thinking he’s got special powers is delusional. He’s a political operator nothing more.

Nothing.

I’m beyond furious with the challengers for this debacle. After the Tories I was so glad to feel like we could return to stability.

Starmer has made some mistakes - the most grave of which has been putting Rachel Reeves in charge of the economy and allowing U turns to happen on the policies in which he believes.

But there is NOTHING in Burnham, Sweeting & Rayner to suggest they would do any better job at all.

So here we are, another effing PM.

Labour - get your heads out of the student bar. It is not a popularity contest, none of the 3 have anything special or different to offer. It’s running the fucking country. Number 1 at the moment are the economy and global situation. These 3 are akin to walking into the sixth form and picking the ones with the loudest mouths.

Josh Simons MP just admitted that Labour is now seen only as a party for privileged people.

Will Self then said that Burnham's entire selling point is trying to convince us that he's always been a great politician that the country loves - even though he's actually only been a dull Blairite who voted for the Iraq War and did very badly when he stood for leader of the party (twice - both times he came over 40% behind a pretty weak candidate)

@EasternStandard re those extremely short shorts there was actually an article on them the other day ! Also referencing harry styles !

People seem to forget that Andy Burnham was previously an Minister in Westminster and made very little impact whilst he was there. I wonder how much of his success in Manchester is because he is surrounded by a team of competent like minded councillors who pushed forward his reforms.
Should he get the Labour leadership, I wonder whether he will have a similar team or whether his ideas will be bogged down by a bloated civil service who seem to drag things out whatever the political party in power.
( Take the Mandelson vetting farce for example where civil servants apparently failed to inform the PM of important information " because that's how they do things")
IMO the civil service need a big shake up and someone in power that makes them more accountable for delivering the policies of elected ministers in a reasonable timeframe. Whether Burnham has the clout and drive to do this I'm not sure.

The king of the north will shaft the south

Absolutely. I'm pissed off too. TV on and having to watch news about bloody Wes Streeting.

Well he's not Rayner, Streeting or Starmer.

That should give him a significant advantage,

He appears to have done well in Manchester and is well thought of. So why not give him a crack at the top job ?

Is any of the other lot likely to do any better ?

He probably will get it if he wins Makerfield. The issue is if he doesn’t, what next?

That NEC block on his last try could be Labour’s sliding doors event. Similar to the Miliband decision.

They have 400 MPs. I refuse to believe that a man who isn't an MP and who has twice tried and failed to become leader before is actually the best they have.

His eyelashes?

I seem to remember him promising to sort safety in Piccadilly Gardens - it’s no better than it was 10 years ago.

Major issues in some areas of GM especially with young drivers racing around the streets. Most town centres are looking quite awful. Do I think he’s done a good job as the GM Mayor - not really. Better than Rayner though to be fair - but that is a low bar…

According to Matthew Syed in the Times yesterday, the answer is to blow out all the spads and lobbyists. Personally, I like the idea.

I don't think Burnham will win in Makerfield, but I shall wait and see.

Well in that case, Sunak and Bojo knock spots off Badenoch....

I think you'll find its all down to the main vote being split 5 ways instead of 2 or 3....

Very basic maths

Nothing! Another deluded Labour person who thinks he can tax his way out of scarcity.

The more I see and read about the candidates who'd like to run our country, the more inclined I am to move overseas. Before the usual wags write, don't let the door hit your arse on the way out, please consider the facts. We are 70, we have worked and saved and are financially comfortable. We pay quite a lot in tax, and take very little out. We could move to Portugal and pay tax at 7% for 10 years on a D7 visa. I could cope, but I prefer to live in the UK. But I can see a breaking point at which Portugal or somewhere else becomes too attractive to ignore.

The UK is losing wealthy people, and not creating the conditions to create more wealth.

And, we are only comfortably well to do, rather than loaded.

Apparently he is! The fact that they are so dumb that they don't realise this is what they are saying to the country just demonstrates that it's not Starmer that's the problem. They are the problem and they will still be there, even if they get the reanimated corpse of Lenin to stand.