How long do you give Andy Burnham as PM?

[AndyBurnham2L]

Build ‘em up.
Knock ‘em down.

Short honeymoon and then the grumbling will start. It will all be over for him by Christmas.

So, who’s next?

I think it’s a mixed bag. Some love him, but plenty of people in my local party were outraged at not getting a say. He had the audacity in one of his first speeches to say that he has always supported previous leaders. Tell that to Kier Starmer.

I was just about to post something similar. I’ve just watched a social media post about his first week. I think he’s coming across as an absolute clown. Full of his own ego. After just one week.

He came in saying he wanted to end factionalism in the party, but has pissed off a lot of senior MPs already with his cabinet selection. He himself represents a particular Manchester faction. Labour has always been riven by internal power struggles. He saw his chance to grab power and he took it.

This is how I've understood this - pure factionalism:

One of Starmer’s biggest problems in government was that he did not have an identifiable faction of people who were willing to defend him at all costs – a symptom of both his late entry into politics and of his relative lack of ideology.

But many of those whom Burnham sacked or demoted after entering office did have one thing in common: they were close to the former prime minister and had not called for him to resign.
“He has chosen not to reward loyalty to the leader,” said one Starmer ally. “That is sending out a message he may come to regret.

“Obviously Andy was always going to bring his own people in,” one Starmer ally said, “but the fact that he kept in everyone who called for Keir to go and ousted everyone who didn’t feels very deliberate.” (The Guardian, 24 July 2026)

It's a bit surprising that you can't get Starmer's first name right.

Thank you.

I suppose if he gets the polls moving towards Labour he’ll overcome suspicion and animosity within the party.

But I can see a scenario where he’s unsuccessful, or at least not successful enough, and the party turns on him. If that does happen it’s hard to see where any loyalty to him will come from.

He has also been treating his administration as a complete break from Starmer’s government and even apologising for what went before. That is guaranteed to anger Starmer’s supporters. We can expect to see further power struggles develop as the likes of Haigh and Rayner jockey for position. They’ll already be thinking about their positions after Burnham. Streeting is also exceptionally ambitious and will be manoeuvring.

I do not expect Haigh or Rayner to play any significant part in Labour’s next three years.

WTAF!

Europe and significant parts of the UK are on fire. Thousands of people displaced.

Any comment from the UK PM?

Of course not - him and the Chancellor are too busy rating pub snacks in Manchester🤷‍♀️

God help us😡

I wouldn’t be so sure, Haigh is a power behind the scenes. Rayner fancies herself as a future leader. I also suspect that there will be tensions with Milliband over the direction of travel on North Sea drilling and his failure to land the chancellor role. I have read a number of insider pieces from generally trustworthy sources who say that behind the scenes the first week has been completely chaotic and funding is a crisis area.

They have already been playing a huge part in Burnham's team - Haigh says for over a year. Angela gave an explosive speech undermining Starmer, but not naming him, in March.

Rayner was addressing the relatively new Mainstream group within the Labour Party, often associated with the Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham. (BBC)

Just played this to DP.

No words. Just looked at each other.

The convicted fraudster Haigh has the third most senior role in the cabinet!

It is brilliant that the PM is acknowledging the role that the pubs play in British culture, and primarily working class British culture. The pubs having been closing down at huge rates for years.

There will always be something more ‘serious’ happening. When should the PM acknowledge the pubs?

Indeed. But spending your time plotting against your former boss after you’ve been shown the door, and being rewarded by the Pied Piper of Makerfield who you plotted with, is no indication that you’ll be listened to or valued in government.

Surely you can do that without coming across like you're trying to create a crappy tiktok trend. What next? is he going to film his opening next black t-shirt haul? or stand in his pants filing a get ready for parliament with me?

A complete narcissist. He is going to fall from any grace he has extremely quickly.

https://x.com/andyburnham/status/2080747321520734541?s=46&t=wjgj9AHysRwn3YQi4vJFdw

I understand that it is Haigh and, not Rayner, but Anneliese Midgley who have made themselves indispensable to Burnham for some time. They orchestrated the PLP welfare rebellion. Took out an AirBNB in Makerfield for a month to campaign, etc.

More likely he’s just going to be hit by reality. The big policy ideas he has like an NHS equivalent for social care are simply unaffordable. He will either plough ahead anyway and the markets will panic (à la Liz Truss), or he’ll have to water everything down and focus on a much more modest agenda. The big test will come with his first budget in October. Until then he can probably get by on vibes and Tik Tok videos.

He will need to start to manage and discuss the big topics soon. And leave bus fares etc to others to announce.

His appointments of Haigh and Rayner were not sensible.
His vanity project of No 10 North a waste of taxpayers money.

So his honeymoon period I think will be short lived.

I hope he can do something good. Although I am very distrustful of his devolution to the Regions. Council tax will go through the roof. But if he thinks nobody will blame him and blame the Local Authority he will be mistaken.
The idea of devolution to Regions was one John Prescott tried.
The Treasury would not support it. Too much public money would be untraceable where it went, not auditable enough. So it never happened.

He started off with hope. Then appointed Rayner. And Haigh. And my heart sank.

One of the issues with devolution is that generally the further you push power downwards the lower the calibre of the decision makers. You’ve only got to watch council meetings to see how poor some of the administrations are. They have nothing like the quality and technical expertise, support and resources of central government.

The suggestion is to abdicate responsibility.

Devolved powers, we know not what that might include.

High council tax or whatever it will be called? Nothing to do with the Government. Speak to your local council.

Any more taxation and powers ‘devolved down’ and we will wonder what we need Westminster for. They used to defer to Europe and blame Europe as to why things could not be done. Which terrified many I think. When that changed. Accountable suddenly.
So many of them will like this. They can point to ‘over there’ again. And throw issues over the fence so to speak.

“You have no authority here Jackie Weaver!”

😆 Imagine that lot suddenly in charge of massive budgets. But as a PP pointed out, it does give Westminster the opportunity to constantly say “that’s a devolved matter” whenever something goes wrong.

There’s also a terrible record of corruption and waste at local level, much worse than in central government.

That’s a non-party political comment by the way. All the parties are as bad as each other in that respect.