Urgh. What a pathetic and insecure human being Starmer is. Reminds me of Alexi Sayle's comments - "the right wing of the Labour Party are the most fucking horrible unpleasant people, just breathtakingly unpleasant."
Absolutely agree with you Mark. I have time for Andy Burnham.
He’s just another bloodsucking tory poorly masquerading in a red tie 🤬
Whatever his policy views our Andy is a very slick political operator who knows the value of maintaining his own brand. We probably will never know whether he knew in advance of him submitting his request to stand for parliament that it would be refused, but one thing seems clear and that is this is just the start not the end, and not just for Andy himself.
It's an interesting one and I do think Starmer is caught between a rock and a hard place on this (and I don't usually have much time for Sir Establishment). If he'd let Burnham stand as an MP the right would be all over him for subjecting the country to the cost of an unnescessary mayoral election, if he fails to let him stand the right will accuse him of running scared (which he almost certainly is). I do have some sympathy for the view that he was only elected for his current term in 2024 and it's only fair to the voters that he see out the term he was elected for.
As Martin says, Andy Burnham is a very slick political operator and I'm sure he'll use the situation to his advantage in some way.
I think that's crediting him though Rick with too much integrity, once again he can't escape his recent past. He said back in 2020: "The selections for Labour candidates needs to be more democratic and we should end NEC impositions of candidates. Local Party members should select their candidates for every election." How does he square that?
I think the argument about mayors having to serve full terms is disingenuous too, there is no historical precedent for it as far as I'm aware, it's just basically something Morgan McSweeney has come up with and if it had been a different candidate and there was an important byelection at stake, it wouldn't have even been an issue. Nice for them to suddenly care so much about the North and doing the right thing!
Whatever individual views people have it seems pretty clear that without Burnham as candidate Labour will lose the by-election without some form of miracle. The really concerning thing is that it is unclear if Labour could hold on to the Manchester Mayor without Burnham as candidate. Either way Reform are the likely beneficiaries.
As much as things are shifting nationally Martin and while I don't want to be naive, I think Andy Burnham's argument was that it'd be pretty difficult to dislodge Labour from the GM mayorality given the result last time: https://www.gmelects.org.uk/result-2024/ It wasn't a shallow victory like Starmer's in 2024 with wafer-thin majorities which were always going to be precarious, it was a deep and comprehensive rout of every other party. I bow to Mark Steel on this one!
https://www.threads.com/@marksteel7/post/DUAqB1piOfw
As we know, we live in uncertain times and I’m not sure if we know how much of Labour’s Mayoral support is solid and how much is personal support for Andy Burnham. He has the gift of being able to appeal to old style Labour voters ie those at risk of voting Reform, while having a clearly Labour manifesto. We haven’t mentioned the Greens yet who have taken a few tips from the Farage political play book and are reaping the benefit in the polls.
As we know, we live in uncertain times and I’m not sure if we know how much of Labour’s Mayoral support is solid and how much is personal support for Andy Burnham. He has the gift of being able to appeal to old style Labour voters ie those at risk of voting Reform, while having a clearly Labour manifesto. We haven’t mentioned the Greens yet who have taken a few tips from the Farage political play book and are reaping the benefit in the polls.
Do you really think that's true? I am the other end of the country but I know a lot of what you might describe as 'old style Labour voters' and they wouldn't dream of voting for those bunch of washed up ex-tory wasters. Suella Braverman has even joined them now. Everyone I know despises her ... even those who aren't in that 'old style labour' catagory.
@simon-g I do have a sense of great unease that Labour are facing a similar electoral threat that befell the Tories and at the moment, I don’t get a sense that the government have a clear enough message/plan to get enough of the electorate on side to prevent a catastrophe in 2029.
I think the current government have lost sight of who makes up their core base and therefore don’t have a coherent policy strategy to deliver on their promises. The threat from Reform is very real and I don’t believe there is an effective strategy in place to beat them.
I also think changing the leader is a damned if you do and damned if you don’t choice as far as the electorate is concerned which is not a good place to be, and requires very deft handling.
Politics is very difficult to predict, and I hope I am proved wrong.
I agree with you basically Martin although I think as Simon pointed out Reform have shot themselves in the foot with taking on so many Tories associated with a government/governments which people despised, perhaps even more so than the current one. I think what makes the current situation so vulnerable for Labour is that their victory was so shallow in 2024. Many of us said so at the time and were ridiculed or accused of being Corbynistas who never got over 2019 but it's true. They got fewer votes than Corbyn got in 2019. Their victory in the most recent Greater Manchester mayoral election was much much deeper and that's why I think Labour is more resilient there, but only in the case of local government. We will see I guess.
I agree with you basically Martin although I think as Simon pointed out Reform have shot themselves in the foot with taking on so many Tories associated with a government/governments which people despised, perhaps even more so than the current one. I think what makes the current situation so vulnerable for Labour is that their victory was so shallow in 2024. Many of us said so at the time and were ridiculed or accused of being Corbynistas who never got over 2019 but it's true. They got fewer votes than Corbyn got in 2019. Their victory in the most recent Greater Manchester mayoral election was much much deeper and that's why I think Labour is more resilient there, but only in the case of local government. We will see I guess.
Yeah, it is very difficult to know what will happen... and a lot can happen in the next few years.
I currently have a Labour MP for the first time ever in history, so that's pretty dramatic from a results point of view. It's shallow in the sense that clearly not everyone around here has turned into diehard Labour voters and our sitting tory MP came in second (lost by about 3,000 votes). It's easy to see why he did lose though, as reform took 5,000 of his votes. It's both an historic result for Labour and a 'shallow' one at the same time.
In my seat anyway, it's clear as day that a chunk of tory voters, voted reform and that's why Labour won here. Labour were up 13% and Reform were up 15% ... tories were down 25%
Whether these big 'defections' will stick, I don't know. If Labour lose a % of their vote to the Greens and the Tories get a % of their voters back (which I think are both likely, because I think the tories will be in a slightly better position come the next GE) then yeah, it will be really close here, if the question is 'can Labour hang on to it's seats?'
I wouldn't like to put a tenner on it either way.
