Best Of

Reflecting on the Makerfield byelection result, I think (as I said) that Burnham was the favourite going in, and never really looked troubled.

Reform would always have struggled, but I think could have performed better if they had developed an effective counternarrative against Burnham, beyond their charge that he was using Makerfield as a stepping stone. That was clearly believed by a lot of people, but it couldn't really go anywhere. I felt where Burnham was weakest was at the point of WASPI - it was an embarrassing f U-turn in real time. But for whatever reason it didn't seem that this was capitalised on.

They also had a problem with the plumber, who I don't think was a terrible candidate, but was undoubtedly damaged, particularly by the Vorderman letter to the women of Makerfield. The letter was an utterly cynical piece of confected outrage, and I think in response I would have issued an utterly cynical confected apology, and gone the 'bad boy forgiven' route. I also might have been tempted to put Kenyon up for an interrogation with someone like Kuensberg so the public could see him sweat it out. High risk, but I think many women might have seen it and ended up with some sneaking sympathy. His line would have been - 'sorry, regret my comments, however do we want a society where the only people who are allowed to hold office are people who have never said anything regrettable on social media?'.

Even with all that, I think Reform's best result would have been to be 'robbed' by Restore. That would have fit their narrative nicely. Sadly they just missed out.

Reform ran a terrible campaign with a poor candidate and took Restore's bait.

There was also an extremely nasty incident in Edinburgh last night, involving someone allegedly mowing down delivery cyclists and running about with a big knife.

Baffled as to why it’s not got into the news yet (other than our local press). I suspect there would be a different reaction if the ethnicities were reversed, and I’ll be keeping a close eye on how the Crown Office approach it.

Just checked the EEN website, bloody hell, I used to live on Duke Street. Even though that part of Leith was less than gentrified then, it was super safe at any time of the day or night.

There’s lots of conjecture and rumour that I won’t trouble PB with, but just to point out that there were a number of incidents across the city, apparently linked according to the police, not just in Leith.

Though tbh while I’ve been living in Edinburgh there have a been a fair few murders and serious assaults at the Foot of the Walk - Spey Lounge etc etc. It’s rapidly gentrifying but the 80s/90s vibe lingers.

I was on Easter Road and Duke St for 5/6 years early to mid 00s, and the most edgy it got was Hibs fans who'd been drinking all day getting lost on their way home.

Although I do remember being told of an incident where a bloke chopped off part of his 'person' in the chippy next to the Spey Lounge by my colleague who lived by the Cats Protection.

Burnham is now clearly the leftwing candidate in any Labour leadership election against Starmer and New Labour Streeting. Whereas he wasn’t in 2015 with Corbyn taking that role nor in 2010 when Ed Miliband and Abbott were the leftist candidates and he was still relatively New Labour.

Burnham might take some encouragement from Ronald Reagan who was beaten by Nixon in the 1968 Republican primaries and narrowly by Ford in the 1976 Republican primaries. As we all remember though Reagan won the 1980 Republican primaries and then the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections. Biden also ran for the Democrats nomination in 1988 and 2008 losing to Dukakis and Obama before finally winning in 2020 the nomination and presidential election

In this particular context what would 'leftwing' mean? Does it mean significantly more than having a particular rhetoric about how you talk politics? How does it relate policy and practicewise to: private enterprise, debt to GDP ratios, deficit, benefits, growth, NATO, overall tax levels, interest rates, migration, student loans, and so on? Unless it means different from Starmer, Tories, LDs, etc in ways that can be articulated, how are we to evaluate?

I think it is Burnham's willingness to take strategic monopolies such as Thames Water into public ownership.
Starmer is very reluctant because it looks too left wing, even though it is very popular with electors.

I do wonder if Burnham really knows what he wants to do with the job when he actually gets it.

Yes, he is not Starmer. That seems to be his main calling card right now.

He hasn't articulated a vision or a coherent set of new policies that will stand up to scrutiny.

And in this regard, he is very much Starmer v2.0 but without any form of mandate for any change he may wish to bring forward. Or, indeed, any money for it.

He needs to ditch much of the current direction of travel particularly the authoritarian measures that Starmer seems to love (when he needs to try to reset his premiership - which then fails to happen) and the Miliband zealotry. Net Zero as viewed by Miliband has to go.

But Burnham will need a GE if he wants to really achieve anything. And that is a risk he may not be willing to take. Look what happened to Theresa.

And as for Starmer, it needs to happen quickly now. Dragging this on will help no one

We need Starmer, Reeves, Hermer and many others out of government now.

The idea that Starmer can fight on and win is laughable. He can walk now with dignity and the promise of a nice job where he can do no harm. Or have to be dragged out after being the first sitting PM to lose a leadership election whilst being in No 10.

Others have been removed by internal coups but I cannot think of a PM in modern political history who has fought and lost a leadership vote.

Starmer cannot think he can continue. Unless he’s really as thick as I have sometimes thought.

What intrigues me is what the point in it all is. Even his foreign policy card has gone. He’s for nothing.

He probably thinks he is better at running the country than Burnham would be. He may well be right too, apart from the key role of making people understand government and feel better about it, where he is terrible.

The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.

The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.

Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.

I'd like to think that he's keen to change things round for the country, in which case the sooner the better.

We are all keen to change the country. We are all less keen to pay extra taxes to fund those changes. And voter blocs are ruthless if any current spending areas are cut, so MPs rebel.

If Burnham can genuinely square this circle I will be very impressed and also surprised. I expect continued inertia, but this time with some decent comms.

He lost to the Jezaster.

Nuff said.

He lost to the Jezaster because Labour was still navel gazing

Every leadership election poses a choice between the candidate closest to your views and the candidate most likely to succeed electorally. Comment tends to favour the latter overwhelmingly, but there are limits, and voting on the leader is the only chance that most members get in choosing the direction of the party. There is no point in picking someone who might be electable if you don't agree with them at all. Arguably choosing Corbyn turned out to be almost right the first time (close to members' views and close to victory in the subsequent election) and seriously wrong the second. The appeal of Burnham is that he's quite open to some left-wing members' views and also quite popular in the wider electorate. Almost nobody's terribly excited by those two "quites" but they seem better than any alternative on offer, and he's an agreeable chap so most of us are up for giving him a chance.

Taking back control...

Jacinda Ardern: ‘New Zealand will become a republic in my lifetime’

https://www.thetimes.com/world/australasia/article/jacinda-ardern-new-zealand-interview-kkppf03f9

Yes, probably they will. More surprising is places like Jamaica which seem to have had political unanimity on the question for decades but still haven't gotten round to it.

It doesn't take long to do even where referendums are required so not sure what the hold up is.

Canada will be last, due to generally being unconcerned.

Or, it could go the other way. And support could firm up.

History does not only march in one direction.

Yes, there's a lot of erroneous straight-line analysis.

But there are sometimes changes which only happen in one direction. No-one is suggesting that any Commonwealth Republic will discard their President and readopt the monarchy.

And you are one of the most strident posters in insisting that Brexit is irrevocable, and that future British membership of the EU is unthinkable.