Post-Makerfield: what do you predict will happen in the next week?

[JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff]

Following Burnham's decisive victory, what do you all predict will happen in the coming week?

I think in fact Starmer will see sense and step away, realising the optics of a leadership contest.

I predict not a lot happening or more accurately in the public domain. Behind closed doors Burnham will be sounding out and firming up Labour MPs for a leadership challenge, putting together a team for that challenge and trying to persuade Starmer to step down.

Starmer will cling on and force Burnham to challenge him.

I don't think Wes has the numbers.

Burnham will win by a landslide and we can all breathe a sigh of relief.

I think Burnham will receive a significant bounce in the polls - he might even be tempted to call a General Election.

I have no clue!
I can't understand why Starmer would persist, but I think he might.

Hopefully we'll hear more about what Burnham will actually do as PM...

Sure Burnham will get a short term bounce in the polls but it will quickly collapse once economic reality kicks in.

Some nice emotive words and speeches but in reality it will be no different to Starmer due to economic reality.

Agree with backroom conversations.

Will Burnham be appointing, in effect, a new Cabinet this weekend? A sort of Cabinet of promises?

I say Miliband for Chancellor and Streeting for either Deputy PM or another big role

I will make 1 prediction. That Starmer will be defeated in a leadership contest and will leave politics for pastures new.

I have lots of respect for ex senior politicians who stay on to work on the back benches. Likes of IDS, Corbyn and May. I maybe don't like their policies, but I respect that they keep working for their constituents.

I can't see Starmer doing that.

I think that Starmer is stubborn but he genuinely has very little support among Labour MPs or his own Cabinet. He will be challenged for the leadership by Andy Burnham and will be persuaded not to stand. Labour MPs and members saw how badly it went down when the Tories kept running leadership contests instead of governing the country and 80-90% of them will want a coronation as quickly as possible.

Burnham will also be the captive of his backbenchers and his party:

Labour members are generally quite left wing (as opposed to centre-left) and are driven by a desire to help, almost to alleviate suffering. It's a different tradition to European social democracy which is "we'll tax you and use the money to build things for the common good". Labour members want to use the tax funds to lift people out of poverty, which doesn't produce the same long-term benefits as investment in infrastructure. They also tend to be universalist and will happily give welfare and subsidised housing to a family who arrived in the country just a few years ago, if they need it. The general public are increasingly not on the same page there.

Well economical Burnham has promised to:
Public control of water, energy and rail networks
Scrap IHT with a national care levy for social care
Big expansion of council home
Return of the northern leg of HS2 to Manchester
cut business rates
More training and apprenticeships than university education
Reverse the employer's NI increase
Increase defence spending
Compensate WASPI women

Of course all of this sounds great but there is zero information on where the money is going to come from to pay for it all.

Of course Starmer will cling on. Lawyers fight to the end.

I don’t think Starmer will last, he’ll try though.

I thought he rowed back on WASPI women?

I hope Starmer stays and fights. He won the GE. It is good Burnham beat Reform/Restore massively. Surely that is a sign that they aren’t doing that well and Starmer can stay.
Burnham should agree to be Deputy instead of Lammy and they should do a deal for Burnham to fight the next GE. Burnham should focus on the UK and turning things around here so Starmer can keep up the diplomatic stage. We need both of them to turn this country around. I do not know why Burnham thinks he is somehow special, he isn’t. He is another middle aged white Oxbridge educated Labour guy, like most of them.

The worst think David Cameron did was resign immediately. It was weak and cowardly. Starmer should do his duty and fight.

I don't think anything will change for a while, at least not outwardly. Behind closed doors might be a different matter though.

I think Starmer will try to cling on, as he should given that it was under him that Labour won the last general election.

I'm very relieved that Burnham so soundly defeated the pillocks from Reform and Restore but we get through far too many Prime Ministers at the drop of a hat these days. Seven in the last ten years I think.

People expect change to be easy and instant these days. It isn't. Rome wasn't built in a day.

Public control of water, energy and rail networks - rail is already being renationalised, doing the same with water can only be positive.

Scrap IHT with a national care levy for social care - not heard this one, when did he say it?

Big expansion of council home - already in the government programme

Return of the northern leg of HS2 to Manchester

cut business rates - only for selected sectors

More training and apprenticeships than university education - excellent, there are a million kids on benefits and we desperately need tradesmen

Reverse the employer's NI increase - haven’t heard this one either

Increase defence spending - already in the government programme

Compensate WASPI women - hasn’t promised this, he said he supports Waspi women

Here is the source to his policies:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clywzj2vk3zo?app-referrer=deep-link

As we've previously established that maths is not your strong point, there is the massive question of how Burnham intends to play for all of this?

Reading isn't your strong point then, you seem to have missed the word potential

He had already said he will not compensate Waspi women

You missed “potential”. Stop insulting my maths - you do it every time you respond to my posts and it’s tedious.

That very helpful link shows where some of the money would come from and some of the costings are dubious - the water companies are up to their necks in debt, just bankrupt them and take back the infrastructure.

My Mum as a lifelong Labour supporter/union stalwart absolutely loved Andy Burnham. She always felt he was "true Labour" in the way Labour should be. She worked with him in the past on union bits and bobs, he was the leader that should have been according to her.

She always hoped that he would get there in the end, but unfortunately she passed away at the end of last year.

I raised a glass to her tonight because she would have been so excited about the result. As the "squeezed middle" no government have ever really had an impact on me. I have, irrespective of mum's political views voted red, blue and yellow.

As long as I'm not governed by Reform. I don't care.

Crack on Andy. Make Mum proud!!!

I think Starmer will force a leadership challenge rather than resigning, but he will be defeated and Andy Burnham will become our next PM.

Would have preferred Wes Streeting but I don’t think that will happen.

I think Starmer has been given the weekend to reflect and agree to announce his planned exit.

If he does not, which is likely, then ministers like Miliband and Shabana Mahmood will resign next week and open the floodgate for other to do the same and there will be a leadership context.

103 Labour MPs have called on Starmer to resign and have asked that he sets out a timetable for his departure.