What is going on with Andy Burnham's social media?

[msagent]

I swear every post I see is following a formula:

• personal anecdote
• link to current issue
• why this means I understand you
• how I'm going to change the world
• join us in doing so

The way they are written makes me cringe. Almost poetic and overly emotive. Maybe it just doesnt work on me.

Anyone else just want some normal?

No, Burnham. Why would you think I meant Starmer?

We’re discussing Burnham. Do keep up.

Predecessors part probably.

more engaging and engaged than many of his predecessors

Didn’t you just write that?

Do you count Starmer there as well?

Oh, I am.

Yes, he's more engaging than Starmer and more engaged, I believe, in how to get a message across. Starmer was a good guy, just never got the messaging right or countered the undeserved criticism he received effectively. He chose to ignore it, to rise above, but unfortunately it didn't really work. People had it in for Starmer for being seemingly dull. Now they've got it in for Burnham because they don't like his more outgoing style. There's also a good deal of sniping about Burnham being a northerner. Who'd be a politician?

Why did Labour get rid of Starmer then?

Because they wanted somebody more dynamic was my take on it. Why do you think?

So they weren’t happy with his performance?

Because however decent a man he was he was a shit politician. It’s all there in the post you quoted.

You never liked him as a politician, in that case, I presume?

I'm not a Labour Party member. Why do you think they replaced him with Burnham?

Starmer was viewed as a bureaucrat on this basis of his experience.

Also, the Harold Wilson comparion is quite ironic because from what I understand, at the time, Harold Wilson was actually criticised along really similar lines to some of those in the grab bag of insults levied at Andy Burnham: Harold Wilson was dismissed as a 'TV Prime Minister' in just the same way Andy Burnham is dismissed as a TikTok Prime Minister, and he was also accused of being unstatesman-like and a performative 'man of the people' too (seemingly for talking in his own accent).

I don’t know.

I wonder.

😆Really? You're sweet..

There were plenty of Labour members and MPs quoted on their reasons at the time of the vote to replace Starmer @celeriacismisunderstood . I take what was said at face value, but the overwhelming impression I got was that they wanted someone with vision and ideas and more dynamism.

Johnson was seen as more media and had higher ratings than the Burnham TikTok version. It can change anyway.

Johnson was dreadful when it came to actually making political decisions and bloody awful when talking off the cuff in press conferences, etc.

Johnson’s MPs saw him off too. Despite him getting rid of all the decent ones.

He was polling higher than Burnham is now so we’ll see how it goes for the TikTok version, to use the pp phrasing.

And obviously higher than Starmer who was ousted due to irritating too many people, including his own MPs.

I'm absolutely not saying that Burnham is going to remain as popular as he is now forever - of course he won't, it would be completely unprecedented in modern politics.

I was making an observation about the Harold Wilson comparison in particular, just noting that it's somewhat ironic to say, 'Harold Wilson didn’t play games with his image, debase his office or patronise the electorate like Burnham does' - because at the time those exact same attack lines were used against Harold Wilson. Personally, I don't think they were true of Harold Wilson, and I don't think they're true of Andy Burnham either.

I totally agree with the OP. I particularly hate the way he uses ‘props’ e.g. bread rolls, hard hats, spanners, parking tickets … the list goes on and on. It’s patronising … does he think we’re so stupid we need ‘show and tell’ before we can understand an idea? Absolutely cringeworthy!

It’s called modern communication. And it’s working. As a pp pointed out if it’s not working for you you’re not the target market.

Exactly right. They don't have anything concrete, do they? Just insinuations about the Man City owners.

I thought he was being particularly patronising too. But then I remembered the electorate and reasoned well he's got to aim his speeches / internet ramblings at his target audience, and that is exactly what he is doing. And it's working.