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A resounding win and Burnham succeeding Starmer by the end of summer would be my preferred outcome

Politics has to change and it starts with Starmer leaving office

Maybe but Starmer to Burnham is a shift even further left for Labour, Burnham is a better communicator than Starmer but Burnham would also likely be the most leftwing UK PM since Harold Wilson

"...Burnham would also likely be the most leftwing UK PM since Harold Wilson..."

That would be Harold Wilson, the winner of four-ish general elections? I think the Labour Party will cope.

Wilson lost 1 general election to Heath in 1970 as well, lost the popular vote in another in Feb 1974 and scraped majorities in 2 in 1964 and Oct 1974 and was beaten by the Tories in England in 2 of the elections he won in 1964 and Feb 1974, saved only by Scottish and Welsh Labour MPs. Only won one clear majority in 1966

A resounding win and Burnham succeeding Starmer by the end of summer would be my preferred outcome

Politics has to change and it starts with Starmer leaving office

Maybe but Starmer to Burnham is a shift even further left for Labour, Burnham is a better communicator than Starmer but Burnham would also likely be the most leftwing UK PM since Harold Wilson

"...Burnham would also likely be the most leftwing UK PM since Harold Wilson..."

That would be Harold Wilson, the winner of four-ish general elections? I think the Labour Party will cope.

Wilson lost 1 general election to Heath in 1970, lost the popular vote in another in Feb 1974 and scraped majorities in 2 in 1964 and Oct 1974 and was beaten by the Tories in England in 2 of the elections he won in 1964 and Feb 1974, saved only by Scottish and Welsh Labour MPs. Only won one clear majority in 1966

THat does still make him Labour's second-most successful leader in electoral terms, behind Blair and ahead of Attlee.

I happen to agree with you that I think those who see Burnham as their saviour should pay a visit to Barnard Castle, but suggesting Wilson as a comparison is a bit odd.

In ideological terms it was apt, Burnham would be the most leftwing PM since Wilson, a tax raising, nationalising, beer and sandwiches with unions type of PM. We would also do well to remember that in the Wilson era which covered most of the mid 1960s to mid 1970s there was a brain drain of high earners and skilled talent from the UK to the USA, Monaco and Swizerland and the Far East due to the punitive tax rates imposed by the Wilson government

You see, actually that describes Starmer fairly well. What do you expect about Burnham that would put him somehow magically to the left of Starmer but not Wilson?

If anything I would put Starmer to Wilson's left.

Starmer wouldn't know if he was to the left or right of Wilson, or indeed anyone else. To make that call he'd need to have some idea where he was actually going.

"the voters like the reality that they are effectively choosing the next Prime Minister"

Conversely, some may not like being used by Burnham as a mere stepping stone on his path to greater things.

I think today's Matt cartoon captures this very well.

No, I think the "used as a stepping stone" stuff is just parroting utter claptrap and will be viewed as such in the constituency.

75,000 electors effectively have the task of choosing the PM of a country of 65m+, and if I were in their shoes I would feel privileged.

Furthermore, it's very hard to envisage that, if they do choose Burnham, as the most powerful politician in the land he'll then ignore the interests of the local area before asking them to repeat that choice in no more than 3 years time.

Fpt:

It seems that the Hampshire plods attempted to libel a murder victim:

An initial police statement later that morning said: “It was reported two men had been assaulted by an unknown man.”

The Nowak family, raw with grief, became concerned that a false narrative was being pushed about their son. It is understood that police told the family the next update they planned to publish, which would include the Nowaks’ tribute, would again imply that he was the initial aggressor.

Officers dropped that section of the statement, which only referred to an “altercation” when published.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/henry-nowak-murder-trial-police-l8x990pkb

What’s happening with the Hillsborough Law? Feels like something Andy Burnham could capitalise on here.

In further echoes of Hillsborough, I see that the victims of the Nottingham attack were tested for drugs:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5ywd4gdzk1o

The father of a university student killed trying to protect her friend has told a public inquiry of his "disgust" that the stabbing victims were tested for drugs and alcohol - but their attacker was not.

The theme which runs through the Nowak murder, the Nottingham murders, the Southport murders and the Fordingbridge rapes is DEI.

With the criminals deemed to need 'equity' even if that requires demeaning the victims.

This case has SFA to do with DEI.

Reverse the ethnicity of the murderer and murder victim and do you think the plods would have reacted in the same way ?

We all know that they wouldn't.

No we don't. Personally I would still rather come up against the Met as a white man than anything else.
And how does "reversing the ethnicity" work when the murder victims were not all white in any case? It's like Vance wading in and blaming immigration for the Nowak case when the murderer wasn't an immigrant, and both murderer and victim came from an immigrant background.

Fpt:

It seems that the Hampshire plods attempted to libel a murder victim:

An initial police statement later that morning said: “It was reported two men had been assaulted by an unknown man.”

The Nowak family, raw with grief, became concerned that a false narrative was being pushed about their son. It is understood that police told the family the next update they planned to publish, which would include the Nowaks’ tribute, would again imply that he was the initial aggressor.

Officers dropped that section of the statement, which only referred to an “altercation” when published.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/henry-nowak-murder-trial-police-l8x990pkb

What’s happening with the Hillsborough Law? Feels like something Andy Burnham could capitalise on here.

In further echoes of Hillsborough, I see that the victims of the Nottingham attack were tested for drugs:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5ywd4gdzk1o

The father of a university student killed trying to protect her friend has told a public inquiry of his "disgust" that the stabbing victims were tested for drugs and alcohol - but their attacker was not.

The theme which runs through the Nowak murder, the Nottingham murders, the Southport murders and the Fordingbridge rapes is DEI.

With the criminals deemed to need 'equity' even if that requires demeaning the victims.

isn't that just outrage over a standard autopsy?

Well, now. I don't want to annoy the blessed @TSE but this comment about the Lucy Letby case on the previous thread begs an obvious question.

"My father has done his research on this case given his former job and his view now is that whilst her behaviour screams dodgy he thinks there's reasonable doubts on her guilt and if he were a juror he would have voted to acquit."

What did this research consist of exactly?

Did he read every day's transcript of the evidence and all the reports and written evidence put before the jury in the two trials? And not anything else. Because unless he did that he can't really say that as a juror he would have voted to acquit on all the charges in both trials.

He might think as others have done that there is other evidence which could have been put before a jury. And that if it had been she might have acquitted. He might be right.

But the key question for me is this: Letby had an expert medical witness advising her team who was willing to give evidence undermining the prosecution's evidence about how those babies died and yet the defence did not call him. Why has never been explained? Only Lucy Letby can do so and she has chosen to remain silent.

Ben Judah
@b_judah

The growing risk of a collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation system, of which the Gulf Stream is part, is nothing less than the number one long-term security threat to our way of life in Britain, Europe and the Western world in the era in which we live.

The consequences on our societies of an AMOC collapse would be simply devastating for Britain especially, beyond anything imaginable but a full blown super pandemic or nuclear war — with scientists modelling temperatures dropping around 15.c and half of our arable land being lost.

This is just one of many climate catastrophes starring at us of the modelling and the observed data and is why it is why Labour has continued to place such importance on Net Zero and international climate talks despite the Greens and progressive activists now looking elsewhere post-October 7th and the Conservatives joining Reform in now campaigning against them.

https://x.com/b_judah/status/2063540337939710222

"...temperatures dropping around 15.c" ??

Presume that means 1.5°C ?

If the AMOC collapses no. 15°C.
Look at the latitude we are on.