Andy Burnham’s coup

[Sandysandybeaches]

I’m feeling increasingly annoyed and worried about this.
He seems like a decent chap and clearly popular in Manchester but it feels increasingly ‘off’ that he is arriving like done kind of messiah to save us all. It feels like an arrogance and very undemocratic. Were there really no Labour mps up to the job?
His aims and vision sound great but there was nothing about how he’ll actualy achieve it and I worry that people will soon feel let down and the trust in mainstream parties will be broken even further.

Thr focus on Manchester I find worrying from someone who wants to run the entire country. How does an extra layer of admin in other place help everyone else who still lives somewhere peripheral? No offence to Mancunians but they’re even further from me than London and I am not interested in the place, in fact it sounds like rural areas, the south west and north east will be even more ignored.

It does feel increasingly like a bloodless coup.

I think that’s an interesting point - the fact that he has been both within and without Westminster politics does feel like a unique part of his appeal.

He’s going have a hill to climb, assuming he becomes PM (highly likely) after the way he went about it. I didn’t dislike him, I’m northern, albeit not Manchester, know he’s well thought of, and I’d say give him a chance.

But I’m not happy that he’s done this now and in the way he has. It shows a complete lack of respect for the public and their vote. It shows an arrogance and entitlement that I find extremely off putting. Combine that with my MP who doesn’t engage with constituents who don’t agree with her view, and frankly I am reaching the point where I wouldn’t vote for Labour.

If he’d come back as an MP, in support of SKS with a calm agreed handover prior to a general election, that would have felt very different. This feels grubby and underhand. I don’t want this in politics. So who do I vote for. Because they are all the same!

To be fair experience in government is probably the last thing that would come in useful.
Zelensky has outled almost any owned leader of recent years (and yes he has his flaws like us all) and he was a comedian.

The country could probably do with being run by someone with 0 political moulding who was capable of ditching every ",taken for granted " notion in the book and starting fresh.
Ditching London as the center of the universe is a good start.

I do wonder if Wes is lying low because he can see an almighty balls up coming and he plans to step in as the messiah? The "normal guy" I am thinking he could have stood against KS and won but then there would always be Smilin Andy around and sniping. Encourage Andy to step in and screw up and that then leaves the way durably clear.......Except Andy might actually be good at the job....me I am not convinced.

I agree there’s something in that. But even if his government experience is so stale as to be useless, Burnham’s a career politician so I doubt we’ll see anything particularly different or innovative from him.

Ditching London as the center of the universe is a good start.

It might be, but being in London is what virtually all politicians want. Even the separatists. I strongly suspect Burnham’s regionalism schtick will die away quickly enough.

I think it's an utter travesty that he can just walk into this job with no public say in it.

we never have public say over who leads a political party

The "intelligence" point is interesting isn't it. I don't doubt that he has a brain personally.

But the "intelligent" thing for a politician to do is to keep as many people happy for as long as possible. That keeps you in your job.

But I think we have gone past this now. There are so many structural things we have got wrong in the UK that we do need radical reform (not Reform!).

The big question for me is whether he is genuinely interested and motivated to begin this process of structural reform. It will be fraught with conflict with vested interests. Or whether his intelligence is limited to trying to survive as long as possible based on ephemeral things that don't tackle the big issues at their base.

That is our political system though, we vote for the governing party - not for the prime minister.

I have no problem at all with no GE on a change of PM. It’s a good thing that Labour can oust Starmer and try again.

(I do have a problem with Labour’s hypocrisy about calling for GEs, but hypocrisy seems to be Labour’s middle name so I’m not surprised.)

You can't expect Larry the Cat to move up north at 20.

Larry the Cat might have no 10 Downing Street PM residence to himself. He’s been waiting ages, it’s paid off finally.

Weirdly I don't think his vision is undemocratic at all.

Johnson's manifesto in 2019 was massively popular. It was a rip off of Burnham's plan for Manchester. It was one of the key things that tipped voters in the north and created the Blue Wall.

A lot of the things he says echo the priorities of Reform voters - but offer an alternative solution.

Much of what he's saying is what is in the narrative that people want and are saying they want.

There is never a bar to joining a political party, if you are so inclined.

I know so much negativity and willing him to fail it would seem.

He will be gone by within a year.

Yes, I remember that I was really optimistic about Starmer as Prime Minister. I'm cynical now.

The public never gets a say in their prime minister. They get a say in their MP and the party that leads government.

The party get to choose though and you’re free to join the party if you so wish. Although because of how Labour leader candidates are selected, this is unlikely to go to the wider party members to vote.

Does this mean the full HS2 will be back on?

Some won't be happy until there is a GE resulting in a hung Parliament and more instability.

Farage will probably get another big fat reward if that happens. Sorry, money for his security. Sorry, money that he is free to choose what to do with.

It will be Russian cyber operatives trying to get "a line" on how to continue trying to destabilise a western democracy.

MN as a petri dish for the UK. Trying to work out how to ring the bells and blow the whistles to make people think they somehow have more agency than they think by telling them they have less agency than they think.

It's a lot of fun. 😀

Do you really believe that first line? Anyone not posting your view can’t just have a different opinion

Maybe Burnham will work out, I’m glad he’s in not Starmer, but everyone won’t feel like that. It’s good to read a range of views politically. Not just everyone who differs is paid etc

Not just everyone who differs is paid etc

Of course not. But there are paid bots of all political persuasions infesting every corner of social media and there is no reason to think MN is immune. We ignore this fact at our peril as it can only get worse.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/22/experts-warn-of-threat-to-democracy-by-ai-bot-swarms-infesting-social-media

Posters tend to accuse anyone and everyone of being paid just because they don’t align. Typically it’s a Labour poster accusing others.

I don’t doubt it at all. The difficulty is showing who’s a bot and who isn’t.

If botmageddon destroys social media and discussion boards I’d celebrate. We can all go back to real news media with editors and proper journalists and writers.