Bye Bye Burnham

[Simon]

It's time

[Mito Man]

Surely they will just call a general election. They spent years moaning about the Tory leaders not being selected by the electorate so it's only right they stand by their values.

[Beany]

No-one is running another GE right now, that would be absolutely fucking idiotic.

[Simon]

The Beeb makes a good comment tonight:

"Labour has found itself in a strange situation it promised you it would never reach – en route to removing the leader who delivered its first general election victory in 19 years. And congratulating themselves for winning a seat they already held, so they can get rid of the man whose campaigning won them all the seats they have."

[ZedLeg]

New boss same as the old boss I reckon.

[Gavster]

Exactly. I don’t believe this will achieve anything whatsoever, they’ll continue infighting and still lose the next election.

[Sundayjumper]

In the more immediate future, there's an election for a new Manchester mayor. It's a supplementary vote rather than first-past-the-post and I've no idea if that's going to prove to be a good or bad thing ?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gy2r2wjm1o

[Jobbo]

Burnham has done well getting people behind him. He has no track record of consistent policies though and there is a fair chance he will come across as doing nothing to solve the issues in this country, much like Starmer. Let’s see if straight talking - and being visible - keep him in power a bit longer.

Of course, plenty of Labour members won’t want Burnham to take the leadership role without a fight so he’s not going to become PM immediately. Pretty much certain it’ll be him of course.

[Explosive Newt]

Sigh.

There is a peri-UKIP-Brexit thing prevalent in this country that if you don't like what is happening then the thing to do is vote for change, even if it isn't clear what we are changing to or in the absence of any evidence that the change being offered will make anything better.

The problem is that this change is very disruptive in terms of policy implementation and long-term planning.

I like Burnham, he is charismatic and has done some good things in Manchester but while he is different, I don't see any evidence that he would do a better job than Starmer. Unfortunately Starmer is (I think mostly due to bad PR) now so poorly liked he has reached a certain political critical mass which is going to make it impossible to resign: he will struggle to advance any agenda now as everyone believes he is about to go.

[Swervin_Mervin]

I don't like Burnham. Far too many skeletons, and he keeps adding more to the cupboard.

However, he has undeniably done some good things for Manchester in spite of that. The Bee Network is a big positive, despite it having its naysayers.

And the local economy here is, relatively speaking at least, booming - GDP here has been growing at twice the national average rate. That said, arguably that's down to policies put in place back in the 80s and 90s, latterly by Howard Bernstein - Burnham has reaped the rewards of those decisions.

It will be interesting to see how he gets on. I have a feeling he's quite heavily influenced by what he sees in the Scandinavian countries, and that's no bad thing imo. My worry is he actually just drags us further left and increases the tax burden even further.

[duncs500]

Was with some friends who used to live in Manchester at the weekend, they were very pro Burnham. I'll wait and see, but it's hard to believe it's going to suddenly create a load of unity or progress!

[Swervin_Mervin]

[Gavster]

If this goes tits up and there another leadership challenge in the next 12 months we might as well just admit defeat and give Farage his turn.