AIBU to think Andy Burnham might call a general election soon?

[Mywishistoclimbthe3peaks]

To think Andy Burnham will call a general election before Christmas? Yes it would be a massive roll of the dice but,

Reform - don't have the numbers for a GE and there's all frog faces suspicious money bringing him a lot of heat.

Torys - kemi doesn't have a lot of depth, I feel and she hasn't changed much in the polls. She's good at the dispatch box but let's face it anyone could stand up and insult the other side.

By calling a GE Andy would have his own mandate and break the deadlock of the back benchers.

Not being unreasonable = he needs to call a GE

Your being unreasonable = Robotic Kier and Ratchet Reeves have gone and Andy just needs to get on with it now.

I think a failure to understand the UKs electoral system is a good starting point.

Unless you are happy to live in a country where ignorance is not only tolerated but indulged ?

That’s another issue. As a provincial mayor he has not faced any significant scrutiny over the last few years and he has been appointed to PM so quickly that the press haven’t caught up. You can bet that armies of journalists will now be scrutinising every inch of his personal and political history. I suspect there will be scandals.

Hmm yes good question, this and the other hating Britain post seem off.

He’s had the scrutiny of voters in Manchester who have voted for him three times. He got a bigger vote share every time.

I'm really not surprised.

I'd love him to. I run a polling station so it would mean money in my pocket. October/November time would be perfect just in time for Christmas!

He won't though. Why would he risk it when he can carry on like all the others.

What an odd thing to say.

I think they’re missing similar tweets from Labour including Burnham when the last gov changed PM.

Very odd, and then a response with another false assumption.

He should really call an election, it’s obvious now that you need the country with you in order to enact change. Labour would lose though, so he won’t.

There’s a big difference between running Manchester and running the UK. Andy is about to discover this. The stuff about ending infighting in the Labour Party, or a new consensual politics with other parties is laughable. He comes across as so naive. Someone described him recently as ‘parochial’ and that was spot on. “Manchesterism”, please give me a break.

He wouldn't lose. No party is polling sufficiently highly to oust him. Reform would have too small a majority to form a government and Burnham would get first dibs on forming a coalition. The other left wing parties would be falling over themselves to join him to keep Farage out. Don't underestimate the strength of will from all but Reform supporters to keep Farage out. Luckily Farage is doing a lot of the heavy lifting himself in this regard.

Why would he want a coalition over a majority?

I agree

You said he hadn’t had any scrutiny. He has. The scrutiny that really matters. Three times with an increased approval rating each time.

It is wrong. Once again you're moving the goalposts. The two things you've written here aren't wrong, but they're also completely different points from whether Labour 'set the scene' for this.

It makes the doubling down all the more ill advised, because you could've made the point about hypocrisy without tying it to an obviously foolish claim about scene setting that you can't possibly back up.

Oh my. Labour including supporters, given I’m talking about SM use it’s not that hard to discern.

The level of scrutiny running for a provincial mayoral post is totally different to the level of scrutiny he’ll get as UK pm. Surely that’s obvious. I am really concerned how some people are seem to think that Manchester is some sort of big deal. It’s not even our second city 🤷🏼‍♂️. The idea that it provides some sort of blueprint for running the entire UK is bonkers.

The groups of people with the highest number of Labour voters were those earning over £50k, so the top 2 demographics in 2024. Most Labour ( and Green) voters are University educated fairly wealthy people. As are most Labour members.
https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/49978-how-britain-voted-in-the-2024-general-election.

Of course Labour would lose, which is why there’ll be no election. It’s utterly ridiculous to claim Labour has any meaningful support, quite the opposite. This is the last we’ll see of Labour for a very long time, he’s not going to waste their last few years,
https://www.bbc.com/news/election/2026/england/results

Half of me thinks that Burnham has one eye on returning to Manchester as mayor, when his current tenure blows up….

That doesn't make what you said about scene setting right, or the other points relevant to whether Labour and supporters were setting the scene. It's not that hard to discern that you were wrong when you claimed that, and that you keep trying to move the goalposts.

It remains a fact that calling for a GE when a PM is installed without one was well established before Labour's last period in opposition, and that they lacked the power or influence to set the scene in the sense of the move towards greater social media. They could not therefore have set the scene.

Call me a sadomasochist, but I just watched the rest of Starmer’s speech.

I had to chuckle at 'my work is done' and was left wondering whether his father remarked similarly when he made a two-legged chair, for example.

Best of both worlds Burnham.

Wouldn't surprise me.