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.

Lots of interesting points. I think my main worry is that the gloss may wear off very quickly leading to more distrust in politicians in general and helping Reform through a sticky patch.

Also for those who mentioned it I am neither a Tory party hq person nor a Russian bot, just a teacher pondering the future while listening to the morning news, who posted my thoughts then went to work.

Both May and Johnson called an election shortly after becoming leader. In Mays case she lost her majority and in Johnson’s case he increased it.

I agree with the last bit….running a prosperous country is the beginning of everything and not at all at odds with labours social responsibility. With greater prosperity comes a natural increase in tax without people feeling they are being raided.

You can’t just keep spending on your ideology and expect people to support you in endless tax initiatives. You can’t keep talking about supporting hard working families but refer only to those practically on the breadline and treat everyone with a bit of disposable income to save and invest or a secure roof over their head as if their pockets are lined with gold.

It’s tough now, it’s tough everywhere, but they are lacking in economic sense. They simply don’t seem to be able to see the obvious consequences of their policies.

I actually think Starmer knew what was needed but lacked command of the backbenchers which the Blair/Brown partnership had for a long time. I just do not know what to make of this latest AB fiasco. It’s another huge own goal.

'Shortly' is doing a lot of work there. May was in for nearly a year without calling a GE. Which is 100% fine under our constitution and way of doing things, but she was absolutely replaced without a GE and no indication that there was going to be one when Cameron resigned either.

I was responding to the poster who had seemingly forgotten the 2017 and 2019 elections.

I kind of meant 'prospering' in a more broad sense than just financially, but yes, that is often what it comes down to!

Agree with your last para. I also think he was making headway wrt defense, which is another crucial thing that many prefer not to think about. It's expensive, and difficult to argue for, but without it we are fucking toast.

Yes, you quoted them. However, given that the 2017 GE took place nearly a year after May became PM, she clearly did replace Cameron without a GE, and it's not immediately obvious why you think the 2017 GE was 'forgotten'. The election came well after the replacement.

Johnson's was sooner, I think you can probably argue that one as 'shortly'.

Thanks for setting up an interesting discussion OP. To come back to one of your original questions: Were there really no Labour mps up to the job?

This is truly a wondrous thing - I mean 400+. I was wondering who I would consider ,,,, Yvette Cooper has a lot going for her. Impeccable academic qualifications, an advisor and journalist before a minister and then long years in opposition. The recent holder of two of the Great Offices of State. A capable woman.

The Labour MPs are responsible for there not being a contest when there should be one
Im reading his and Steve Rotherham’s recent book Head North. It’s reasoned and well considered. I think a lot of the domestic stuff has been road tested and I welcome a public ownership council house building agenda. And he has proved you can use private money smartly to do these sort of things
he has also donated 10% of his salary every month to a charity dedicated to tackling
homelessness. That’s over £150k. He is going to do the same in Makerfield.
thats a mark of the man. He’s from a decent close family and his brother is an A and E consultant
he lives in the area he grew up in and sent his kids to the local schools. He’s committed to social advancement for all having experienced going from a working class background to Cambridge
He has been on a personal journey with Hillsborough that makes him emotionally intelligent.
and his CV with experience of national politics is as good as any for the job of PM after the years of dross we had in Tory years.
I’m not anti KS but it seemed his reputation with voters couldn’t be rescued.
i do think Burnham will need to call an election at some point , maybe 12 months time
let’s not fall into the trap when the right wing press turn on him of making their job easy for them. Someone has got to succeed at leading our country
the choice of foreign secretary is key to let him concentrate on domestic issues as that’s what voters want.
KS would be just the man for that job

Because the poster referenced May and others taking over without an election. That’s not accurate. May did call an election after taking over as leader - yes in 2017 but one was called after she took over the leadership.

I kinda agree. Didn’t he stood for Labour leader twice and never get selected? Clearly back then Labour members didn’t think he was good enough. So why is he considered good enough now? Only time will tell.

Yes - so today we have the announcement of the extra defense funds. Great but why is everything such very heavy weather. As much as I like Starmer he just hasn’t built the powerhouse. You can see how the Blair/Brown partnership was so strong.

What I don’t understand is…if Burn ham cared SO much about the country and democracy then why didn’t he offer to work FOR the PM and with the PM - the PM who actually won a general election and a mandate from the electorate - rather than it having to be yet another power struggle. Why do these self promoting men always have to be In Charge and why can’t they actually be part of a team. It’s depressingly always about ego and personal ambition and this guy so far seems like yet more of the same. It’s all about Him. I am a Labour voter by the way and I am not happy at all with this soap opera that Burn ham has instigated. And I have no idea of his policies. Experience of running buses or some such in one standard city is not going to cut it.

Right, I think you're reading 'without an election' as literally never again stood in a GE, rather than having taken over without the electorate getting a say on that in a new GE. Based on the what the poster wrote and the context of the discussion, I think it's unlikely she meant neither leader ever was PM in a GE at any point. Because the odds of someone having forgotten two quite recent elections seems pretty remote. In the same way, nobody really thinks Gordon Brown didn't become PM without a general election, even though the 2010 one later happened.

It also wouldn't make sense in the context of this discussion, because assuming Burnham does become PM, he probably will be incumbent PM in a GE at some point. Most PMs do fight at least one GE sooner or later and people will be aware of that. But the people who are annoyed at the change of PM without a GE now aren't going to think it's retrospectively legitimised if we have one in summer 2029.

And nearly a year after isn't 'shortly' either way. If we did have either a law or a constitutional convention that we had to have a GE whenever the prime ministership changed hands, and I'd voted knowing that, I'd be pretty fucked off to wait 11 months!

I’m not keen on how it’s been done. But I’m prepared to give Andy Burnham a chance, provided he continues with the manifesto on which Labour won the election. That’s what I voted for, not something completely different. If not, he should call a general election.

It is honestly so unbelievably patronising to describe being elected three times with a massive majority as Mayor of the city region with the fastest growing economy in the country as “experience of running buses or some such in one standard city”

Buses matter to people. Regional growth matters to people. Feeling proud of the place you come from, even when other people sneer at it, matters to people. That’s why Andy Burnham is popular.

Is "Burn ham" deliberate? It's a bit lacking if so.

We’ll have to agree to disagree.

No - just autocorrect rejected his name

Let’s hope his supporters are all proved right, else the future for the country is bleak indeed.

He has not demonstrated you can use private money to build council housing. The skyscrapers in Manchester have not one affordable housing unit in them, let alone council housing. They have, however, made one man, Daren Whitaker of Renaker, incredibly rich.

Central Manchester may look nice and shiny but the areas around it are still poor.

Andy Burnham is not the genius people think he is. Manchesterism wasn’t even his idea.

Let's hope @hellohelga comes back and tells us whether she did indeed mean neither May nor Johnson ever faced a GE then. Or whether she meant they didn't call one at the time they took over, like predecessors such as Brown and Major. I know where my money is.

But he wasn't even an MP when someone decided he was next in line for the throne and they'd jolly well have it arranged.

Its no way to run a democracy. At least all the revolving-door Tories had been voted into Parliament before they went for the job.

I’m no particular fan of the way this has come about, and I don’t think it would have happened anything like so quickly if Starmer hadn’t blocked Andy Burnham from standing in the Gorton and Denton by election - but the fact is, Andy Burnham is currently an M.P and therefore can become leader of the Labour Party if that’s what the PLP decide. We vote for the governing party, and that party chooses their leader - rightly or wrongly, that’s how our political system works.

What riles me is the patronising, sneering way his achievements as the Mayor of Greater Manchester are dismissed on threads like this one. People don’t have to like Andy Burnham but to suggest he’s somehow not experienced enough is ridiculous.

Burnham’s record as mayor has been doubted. And his coverage in the local media is questionable. Andrew Gilligan wrote about this recently. There’s much less to Burnham than his hype machine would have you believe.

I hope Larry the Cat scratches him.