To find Andy Burnham’s sudden rise to the top odd?

[GarlicBiscuits]

A few weeks ago, I’d never heard of this man. A few weeks ago, he wasn’t even an MP.

Yet suddenly, he’s everywhere and going to be our next prime minister? What qualifies him for this role? It seems that all the Labour MPs love him. Why?

The whole situation is very odd to me… I’m not sure it’ll do Labour any favors at all.

If you truly believe that, you should report the thread.

You will not, though.

He’s the best for the job.

Premised on what, please?

He only cares about his beloved Manchester, he should have just stayed as Mayor

The opinion of the parliamentary Labour Party. People like you wouldn’t approve of any Labour PM on principle.

A grooming gang apologist and advocate of men in womens spaces
What's not to like?

@Settlersa , I do rather tire of the focus on him representing 'the North', when it appears to be referring to Manchester and surrounds.

As someone who hails from the North East originally (but now lives in the South), I was aware of him but that's mainly due to age,
from the Blair government. From my experience of returning there frequently to visit family, I'm not sure he's someone who is particularly relevant to the rural community of Northumberland (nor, I would imagine, to those of Cumbria or Yorkshire).

Andy B has previously tried to be elected Labour leader. And not been voted in. He left as an MP to become mayor of Manchester.
Andy B has what Keir Starmer lacked. An ability to sell an idea. To galvanise the team.

What matters next is what ideas he is selling and what team he is galvanising.

I like some of his plans and dislike others. If he picks Angela R to be anywhere in his top team he will have made an error.
The reason he is now presented as PM is because Labour are terrified of losing large numbers of seats and therefore jobs. And think he will save them.

I certainly don’t think he is unqualifed for the job and didn’t suggest he was. In fact, I feel really hopeful that he might do well. But his parliamentary career was in a different era as far as politics goes, and in that context of recent experience it is correct to say that he has only just become an MP ( I should have said ‘again’) Again, I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing, I just noted it felt odd/unusual for anyone to be made PM in these circumstances.

He did not just appear from nowhere. He has been a minister and he has ran for Labour leader at least twice. Of course the Labour MPs know him.
He was not in Parliament and I find it odd that he seems to have no contest. There seem to be a full agreement within Labour and he is unopposed. At least, that is what the press is presenting. I am just hoping that none of this gets to his head and he does not become arrogant and takes things for granted. I have heard speaking and he does not sound arrogant at all. Fingers crossed it does not get to his head.
On one hand, it is good to see Labour united, finally. Hopefully they will be able to agree things amongst themselves before talking to the press or Parliament, avoiding endless U-turns.
On the other hand, I was hoping for Labour to lead a deep debate about where UK is, their manifesto and how to get things moving for UK. And I am a bit wary that this may not happen when the winner is already chosen.
We shall see. I am willing to give Labour a full on chance. But the very last one, that is.

He’s been sniffing around for 20 years. Never good enough to shine though.

Have a look at this OP

Have you ever seen a politician handed their own arse by 30 000 scousers?

And then come back 5 years later after changes were made?

Arf arf.

sadly, I too think this is the beginning of a full scale disaster. Someone who has sorted out buses in Manchester probably isn't quite ready for international negotiations or much else for that matter.
and before all you Mancunians pile in, I do
know he’s done rather more than that for Manchester but ……..

He has been a minister!
What is so difficult to grasp about that sentence?

This is what I first think of too.
He’s been around since late 1990s and was elected for the first time in 2001. Hardly a newcomer.

I became aware of him after seeing this - I thought his reaction was humble and genuine. And he launched the second Hillsborough enquiry the next day. I think he was culture secretary at the time - so he’s not inexperienced in cabinet. That inquiry was the one that changed the official view of that disaster.

None of that might impact how you see him but it does show he’s really not a new kid on the block.

The danger he needs to avoid is believing his own publicity that he is some sort of saviour.
From initial impressions he seeks to govern for some and not all. He seeks to offload responsibility to local Councils for key decisions.

I'm getting fed up of it and DS lives in Manchester. I live in Northants which is in the East Midlands but feel that he sees us as 'The South' so part of what he sees as the problem and what about all the North above Manchester area.

He’s done rather more than that generally. Been culture secretary for a start.

‘People like me’.

Who are ‘people like me’?

The PLP would have backed Binface over toxic Starmer, so the hurdle was hardly set high, was it?

?

Agree, he’s far left in the worst ways with terrible ideas. He’ll fail spectacularly too because there’s no way he’ll live up to the hype. The cynic in me would say he’s being deliberately handed a poison chalice a bit like Teresa May was.
We’ve had something like 6 or 7 PMs in the last decade and at least a few of them haven’t been well-known to the public until they were thrust into the premiership. Something in our system seems a bit broken!

YANBU.

It’s very odd indeed, and nothing like this has happened before in British politics in my lifetime. I’m a ex-Labour member so I remember him being a cabinet minister in the last Labour government & standing in both the 2010 & 2015 leadership elections. I seriously considered voting for him in the latter. He has proved that he is by far the most popular centre-left politician in the country and that he can beat Reform in one of their top target constituencies, which is why the party has turned to him to dig them out of the mess they are in.

These events are a sign of desperation & panic by the party following the disastrous local election results. Starmer is deemed to have failed as PM, perhaps slightly unfairly, but largely because he is a hopelessly poor communicator. He has made mistakes, but so did Tony Blair, and at least Keir hasn’t taken us into an illegal war. He got the single biggest decision of his premiership, keeping us out of Trump’s Iran fiasco, right. Not that his critics in the right-wing press will ever acknowledge that.

I’d say that’s fair. He could get things done when his party wasn’t even in power.
And he hasn’t come from nowhere. His work in Manchester has been amazing for years.

Really He was definitely around in COVID times Probably one of the few that had a bit of common sense. Not sure how you can't of heard of him

He's followed the Boris path to PM