Has Andy Burnham ended up as PM somewhat under false pretences?

[Imdunfer]

Please note that this is from a left wing Labour supporting paper.

It turns out that the marvellous redevelopment of Manchester that was the central plank of his credibility to become PM was triggered by the fall of Mubarak in Egypt in 2011 and what were effectively, or previously close to, bribes set up by the then Tory government to retain our massive defence contracts with the Middle East.

The owners of Man City, recently found guilty of breaking well over 100 financial football rules, are heavily involved. UK developers were excluded from access to large development contracts. Man City was sold a deal including the naming rights to the stadium, owned by the council, for £750k a year when professional rights brokers estimate the market value to be between £10m and £15m a year for the name alone.

The question is, did a local Mayor with no experience outside politics and only a tiny amount of experience of cabinet roles, (3 jobs in 3 years), get to be Prime Minister without a challenge on the strength of the development of the centre of his city that he actually only had a small part in creating?

https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2026/oct/25/thats-the-way-the-city-works-how-the-uae-changed-the-face-of-andy-burnhams-manchester

Oh dear and the personal attacks just can't help themselves. No, your comment hasn't helped, except to highlight more intolerance of different views.

It certainly beggars belief that someone who claims to be au fait with all current affairs, especially within European countries, would post such nonsense. Horrible.

.

You dont believe an attack on a Jewish girl has taken place.
You're more bothered about things being made up, even though the police are clearly in action.
You're not addressing the post but attacking the poster.

I would say it's your aim thats off.

What repeated patterns?

Why would anyone have trust in your posts?

the ones where you float your far right opinions regularly in your posts, but try to camouflage them with a thin veneer of reasonable actor

you ain't winning this one

You just know they’ve lost when they go ad hominem.

Ad hominem 😂😂😂🤪🥳

Somebody's on a mission. Tata.

She clearly didn't see the mod's message or is choosing to ignore it. Ignoring stirring posts is what I shall be doing. Back to the thread...

University of Michigan. Just in case you wanted to look up the case of an attack on a Jewish girl for airing her views about Iranian oppression on women.

Definitely best to ignore. Don't rise to it.

Eh?

So, we have a new female leader of Bulgaria who is openly Putin affiliative, riots in France, Germany and Italy, Poland imploding politically, France lurching far right with economists predicting they will need a financial bailout due to their level of debt, Spain with armed guards to prevent another invasion from Ceuta while giving a route to citizenship to 600,000 illegal immigrants already in Spain, an inability to agree the EU budget with the poorer nations saying they need more money and the richer ones saying they haven't got it, trade agreements decades old still not ratified because 27 states can't agree they should be because of conflicting interests, a reputable organisation estimating that the cost of belonging has risen while we were out from a net 7-10 billion a year in 2015 to between 25 and 41 billion a year if we rejoined today, ....

Could somebody remind me why they want to rejoin this club other than to make their holiday travel easier?

So moving on to the US, seeing as this thread is no longer on topic, mid term elections this week.

Does anyone agree about the scurrilous rumours that Le Pen and Badenoch do not get along with each other?

There are some common denominators, but I worry that the political class is simply not listening, in some of the countries you name check.

But, yes - perhaps Burnham thinks he will be lending them his support by rejoining….

No, I can't tell you. Turkeys voting for Christmas springs to mind.

Burnham has tried to play down what he wants our new relationship with the EU to look like. I'm glad Badenoch cornered him on that. It's flip flop part 2.

I fully agree that the rise of unrest and extremism across Europe is deeply worrying, and I am not actually sure I personally would advocate for re-joining right now. But we are not immune from the consequences of rising division and unrest in Europe, just because we aren't in the E.U anymore. No matter what the various upcoming European elections bring, we are going to need a serious, pragmatic conversation about what our future relationship with the EU should look like.

No idea. Its not an attractive proposition rn.
I voted remain but would not vote to rejoin. I'm glad we're out.