AIBU to feel like Andy Burnham is an impostor?

[NotABeliever]

Whenever I see him on TV, my first reaction is a jolt of disbelief — as if Andy Burnham has somehow staged a stunt and pushed out the person who actually earned the right to be in Number 10 but somehow everyone is ok with this. It feels like a con, like he’s occupying a role that isn’t his.

What’s strange is that I don’t dislike Andy Burnham, and I’m hardly a devoted Starmer supporter. Yet something about the way Starmer was removed and replaced so abruptly feels fundamentally wrong and unserious . I keep thinking: Starmer is the one who won the election, not Burnham — so how is Burnham now the Prime Minister? It feels like a huge injustice.

I understand that in the UK we elect a party, not a president, and that whoever leads the party becomes PM. But even within that system, it’s hard to accept that a sitting Prime Minister can be shown the door simply for not being popular enough. With three years until the next general election, how can anyone confidently claim Starmer would have lost? Polls swing constantly.

It just feels like a moment of madness — a sudden upheaval that’s left us starting from scratch with a new cabinet and a new agenda, right when the previous team was in the middle of governing and getting on with the job. I can’t shake the sense that something about this isn’t right, and I’m struggling to make peace with it.

He'll be gone in a couple of years so we can have a fresh shiny pm before the next election. By then all our woes will have been laid at his door. It's an embarrassment how many pms we've been through lately

Well at least he has very recent experience of running something large and being reasonably successful at it. Not just a career politician who is unproven at anything much.

i think john major held his job for some time - 7 years - and was pretty ok about it, despite, or due to being a Grey man

He has not been ‘out of politics’ for ten years, at least get your facts right. He was elected by the Greater Manchester public to run the Combined Authority, so the same as Boris’s run up to become PM.

I didn’t want him as pm, I don’t trust him or most of his cabinet, especially the ones who have cheated the system they impose on others, and I think he will be a disaster for the country.
All his fuss about No 10 North, but who made Manchester “the North”. What about Newcastle? Or Durham or Liverpool?
And while he’s messing around with this and cutting bus fares that his own party increased, what about cutting the welfare bill and the defence spending we need? These are the real issues. And sorting the NHS.
it’s all performative so far and his ideas are about what worked in Manchester because that’s his only experience.

I actually am quite a fan of Kemi now.

I actually think the way he came into power without opposition will come back to bit him.

I also predict he will be as unpopular as Starmer within 6 months.

If you listen to what he is saying, he wants devolution to all those places and more to ensure power exists in localities, not all held in one building in London.

Agree with this.
Let’s hope Andy is all he says he is.
But God, let’s hope he stops this drilling in the North sea insanity!!

I feel similarly. I said to DH yesterday that I can’t believe that Burnham is now PM.

From Manchester mayor to being elected via an engineered by-election and PM in a matter of weeks with no contest is bizzare to me.

He'd better do a bloody good job. I bet Keir is raging though despite his tearful ‘my family…’ speech.

At least other PMs who replaced the incumbent were sitting MPs at the time (even if some were awful 🥬).

And it is not his only experience is it? He was in government previously and decided to step back from Whitehall because of the way decisions were made.

Agreed it’s definitely bewildering.

I think you’re just trying to smear him for your own reasons.

Going back a bit further, Churchill became PM in 1940 after Chamberlain resigned, without an election or a contest.

This is were you thinking is wrong - we don’t vote for a prime minister we vote for a party and the leader of that party becomes prime minister.. so unless you live in stramers constituency then you didn’t vote for him.

he made a mess of being in charge, he was effectively sacked and replaced with a new boss. I liked Starmer. I liked what he stood for, I liked that he worked himself up from a relatively normal upbringing to better himself (which is great, the next generation should inspire to be better than the the last) but he employed Mandelson, he put policies in and then changed is mind a few days later and he just didn’t take the same level of “labour will make changes” in to the role!

Andy burham will he doesn’t back down, he does what he says he’s gonna do, and like Starmer, he’s from a normal working class background and worked hard to get were he is

I feel the same OP

We are a democracy and nothing about this process was democratic. He should call a general election.

100% agree with your OP and it articulates really well why the situation is so bloody weird. A man who was only (re)elected to parliament a month or so ago somehow pushes out an elected prime minister, who won a big majority a couple of years ago and becomes PM completely unchallenged.

We are indeed a democracy and Burnham was fairly elected by the people of his constituency. Which part of that do you feel is undemocratic?

The fact that he and his cronies, including possibly some of Starmer’s cabinet ministers, have been planning this for a year is despicable. They are paid to do a job as MPs not to spend their time playing political games.

I really dislike what has happened but I hope he succeeds as we need growth and stability. But they need to get their heads down and focus on the big issues, not tinker around the edges with the easy ones.

The bit where a man who wasn’t an MP engineered a by-election in order to oust the PM.

Someone has listed above all the PMs who took office during a parliamentary term, replacing an elected leader, but at least they were MPs when they began their bid to be PM.

100% this! People seem to have forgotten what a manipulative back stabber Starmer is - which is how he became leader of the party.

Another day. Another anti-Burnham post.

Have a rest. This is our parliamentary system.

Do you really think that this doesn't happen in every government. Leadership becomes untenable.

I'm just thankful we were spared a lengthy leadership contest.

I’m well aware of perfectly allowed in our system, and I don’t think he’s illegitimate or it shouldn’t have been allowed or anything.

But I do understand why it feels a bit different. For a start, in the other recent cases listed, the new PM was (or had very recently been) senior in government. Brown was chancellor, May Home Secretary, Johnson Foreign Secretary, Truss foreign secretary, Sunak chancellor.

Also, this situation, with someone resigning their seat so Burnham could stand, feels less like “we need a new party leader, who would be best” and more “we want Burnham. Let’s make it happen”. And ultimately, I think the attitude that he’s riding back into national politics to save the day will damage him more than anything else. That picture of him in front of a huge number of Labour MPs grinning away the day he was sworn in was bizarre. Not because I dislike him, but because of all the MPs fawning over the new shiny thing like he’s a hero.

Again, I’m not saying it’s not allowed. I’m well aware it is.

You may feel that's untoward, even unethical but it's not undemocratic. The Makerfield MP was entitled to step down for any reason if his choosing. Voters in the constituency had a choice as to who they voted for. Once elected, Burnham was within his rights to challenge Starmer and was backed by a majority of the PLP. None of that supports a call for a general election.

I don't understand the whataboutery. Burnham wasn't an MP, Truss and Johnson were when they became PM. That Burnham had to get himself a seat is the obvious difference. The previous PMs had been established in parliamentary positions. Boris, after his mayoral role.