How stupid are Labour MPs?!

[JoyousOpalLemur]

One after the other on the BBC this morning, all but one patting themselves on the back and almost dancing for how clever they are that they're forcing Starmer to resign so that Burnham will be coronated the new PM.

They all think they've got the new Boris.

Maybe he is, but it didn't work out very well for him - or for us - did it?

Starmer stood for leader once, won by a landslide, and then won a landslide general election. Burnham has stood for leader twice before, and got trounced both times. Winning a mayoral election in a Labour heartland is hardly a remarkable achievement.

They all seem to think Burnham will unite the left, but he hasn't given one policy idea that will appeal to left wing voters.

Starmer is a decent man. I don't regret voting for him. Burnham is an actor who says anything that he thinks will make him popular. I know who I'd rather have.

Because that is the system in most of our political parties - the membership get a vote in the leader who will be the PM.

Whether or not its wise to have the future PM appointed by a group who mostly won’t understand the job and who are very unrepresentative of Josephine Public is debatable. Truss could only have been made leader by the rank and file of a party membership - the MPs (and the public) would have made a different choice.

I think there’s too much being made of this, the majority opinion from Manchester is that he’s fantastic. It’s absolutely a unique situation. Without that lead, I’m not so sure that if there were another by election tomorrow, that the outcome would be the same, and Reform are still sat there waiting and with suppor

You can't do the stuff that damages jobs and expect the economy to grow.

It breaks the country.
We're goosed.

High energy costs are crippling companies.

Can't help thinking if Labour had stuck to the Manifesto they would have been in a much better position now.

Instead they talked down the economy, made huge tax rises, killed growth, increased public spending, reduced immigration by just 5% and borrowed 126 billion to make it look like everything is going fine.

Didn't they get the message in the local elections? It's not your leader that the majority of the electorate hate, it's your infantile policies.

We have a representative democracy. These idiots were elected on a Labour manifesto so they were sent to Parliament to implement the manifesto. Not pander to whatever social media says. So they were elected on a manifesto, the government tries to implement the manifesto ( largely- I agree the WFA fiasco was ill thought out and was not a manifesto pledge, and should and could have been better implemented- a £25k limit for eg) they vote against their own manifesto forcing u turns, their constituents say ' eh? They don't know what they are doing with all these u turns', vote against the government u turns forced by the backbenchers in the first place then the backbenchers panic but can't find a single person out of 400 of them suitable to be their leader and decide Andy Burnham will save them. He either won't or he will, but he will do it by telling them to sit down, stfu, support their own government or he'll call another GE where they will all lose their jobs. The Tories under Thatcher were trounced quite often in local elections. She survived for 3 terms.

My favourite meme right now. Says it all...

Love it !

The one line that stands out most from all that you’ve said is that there’s not one person out of over 400 MPs we can think of who could be leader, even if they wanted to. Maybe Shabana Mahmood?

That’s depressing.

there’s not one person out of over 400 MPs we can think of who could be leader
There are but who'd want to stand? I'd prefer 'a safe pair of hands' but the media want a 'personality'.
I like Sir Keir Starmer and feel sickened by how he's been treated.

I feel bad because I want Labour in power but the whole hoo-hah around Andy Burnham is personality politics.

The long and the short of it is the public and the media like 'pubbable and clubbable' not actual politics.

The public and media do not like women politicians. They did like Thatcher but she was different.

@BandyUrnham The long and the short of it is the public and the media like 'pubbable and clubbable' not actual politics.

Which is why I've seen this joke: A Blairite a Brownite and a Corbynite walks into a pub and the barman says "Hi Andy, What do you want to drink?"

Most posters here seem to have written Burnham off before he's even started. I've no great faith either, but I'd wish the bloke all the best. As I did with Starmer.

It’s already been brought up about a contract that Andy Burnham’s wife was awarded in Manchester from the government . On lbc it was mentioned this morning by a caller , but the presenter had to shut him down.
He may do well to try and explain about that first off, the press will go on about it as they do anything that anyone does. It may have been awarded on a bidding basis and all correct , but it goes to show that they will dig up anything to discredit people from the get go.

I feel nothing but negativity for Burnham but if he starts doing policies I like then he will win me over.

He's said in the past that he wants to overhaul inheritance tax so that everyone just pays 10% - IMO that would be an excellent start.

Me too. It is the way it’s all been done. If he will properly defend women’s rights and maybe attract Rosie Duffield back, that would be great.

A few days ago I posted this: And don't even mention Chris Mason - who seems to exist solely on generating huge amounts of froth as if he needs it to feed on ... 🐛
It has been flagged up on another thread that already on the BBC: Chris Mason: Questions multiply for the man tipped to replace Starmer

I've said for decades that people tend to vote for the person they'd like to have a pint with. The 'they picked the wrong brother' about Ed Miliband was IMO down to his brother being more telegenic.

@MulberryBrandy , I've seen that one before and I didn't find it amusing then. I agree about Chris Mason though - I wish he didn't sound so gleeful.

BBC was talking outside number 10 yesterday and they had one man presenter and another lady and Chris Mason had to but in. The other presenter did look put out!
I know he is the main political man, but if felt off that way he just took over proceedings.

Yeah the press had a field day with Ed M but I think he was more selected by his party as he was more to the left than David. David would definitely in my view have been more electable, although I too preferred Ed’s lefter stance at the time. That’s how I remember it anyway.

@Hummingbirdhawkmoth , same here. I'd have been happy with either of them but preferred Ed's politics.

Who advises Labour leaders? The gaffes like the Ed-stone and scrapping the fuel payment were gifts to the media.

He didn't. He got fewer votes that Corbyn 5 years earlier. He won the GE because Tory voters didn't vote Tory anymore because of Sunak. It was the Tory vote that collapsed rather than any "landslide" of voters wanting Starmer. He was really a PM by default rather than by popularity nor competence.

A big yes. We also need to get back to what Gordon Brown tried (and U turned) which was a lower 10% income tax rate. There's too much of a chasm between paying zero tax and then paying relatively high rates. We need to reduce the "steps" and reduce the cliff edges with stupidly high marginal tax rates. Everyone wants a higher tax free personal allowance, but I'd say the opposite, halve it down to £6k but then have a 10% rate between £6k and say £18k. We need to break the cycle of tax/benefits driving behaviour as it's causing havoc to the economy. With IHT, 10% on everything rather than 40% on £1m plus would bring in more revenue and would kill the huge tax planning industry stone dead - a very good result!

Plus whatever he got then isn’t the same now hence the Labour MPs moving on the leadership. They don’t want to wait closer to a GE to change.

He didn't mean to replace IHT with 10% levy though. It's about introducing 10% levy on all estates, so seems to be on the top of current 40% rate

Agreed. They think there is something fundamentally wrong with Starmer but they forget he was popular before the RAGE MACHINE of right wing social media crucified him for breathing.

The same will happen to Burnham and he'll suddenly become this unlikable, useless bloke with no charisma.

To unpick this a bit, if I may. I know you are right about Corbyn and the Tory vote. My comment was addressing @RedTagAlan , as in the quote history, about what constituents were telling Labour MPs - hence my 'silent majority'.

One is, of course, influenced by what happens locally and my constituency had always been firmly a 2 horse race - Tory/LibDem. So in 2024 I was in a town that I saw had a meeting re: tactical voting. Through that I saw online sites where it was assessed how to vote in that way in the GE. Our Tory MP lost over 30% of their vote - we have a Labour MP.

I'd never have blamed Sunak though - he was the least of it. Poor Rish!