Don't Count Your Burnhams

Apparently it's all in the bag:

Andy Burnham will push to become prime minister in time to address Labour’s autumn party conference in Liverpool, his supporters have said.

The Greater Manchester mayor cleared his first hurdle to becoming the candidate in the Makerfield byelection on Friday when Labour’s ruling body gave him permission to stand for the seat.

If confirmed as Labour’s choice, he will need to win a difficult contest for the Greater Manchester seat in mid to late June. Support for Reform UK surged in the area at the local elections.

With the byelection most likely to take place on 18 June, some of Burnham’s supporters believe he has a path to becoming prime minister before parliament breaks for the summer recess, but sources close his campaign believe his preference is for a longer timeline.

His prize for winning a leadership contest in the summer would be a victorious homecoming and what one supporter described as a “natural moment” for a transfer of power in Manchester.

But remember, "all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce"; and Andy Burnham has always been something of a clown car politician.

This is the man who managed to twice be rejected by the Labour membership in leadership contests.  Losing the first time to Ed Miliband - making him one of a very small number of people to achieve that feat, outisde the Miliband family circle.  And the second time to Jeremy Corbyn, so decisively he couldn't even muster 20% support, even though he officially finished second.

(Corbyn is, of course, the elephant in the room; everyone knows he'd win again at a canter, if a) he hadn't been bundled out of the party on a shoddy pretext and b) MPs didn't have a lock down on who gets onto the ballot.  

(Those same MPs - terrified of losing their jobs when they are finally forced to confront the electorate once again - might want to remember Corbyn secured a brain melting 40% of the vote in 2017, and even his 2019 nadir - after two years of constant vilification and undermining by the same people now desperately trying to defenestrate Starmer - was virtually the same vote share as Starmer's glorious victory.)

Burhman can't lead Labour until he manages to win Makerfield.  That's a big ask.  Neither the Tories, nor Reform, nor the Greens want him to win.  All of them benefit from Starmer staying in place.  

Reform will fight ferociously for the seat, because of the publicity it will afford them, and because they'd rather not have the amiable Burnham as PM rather than Starmer.  

The Conservatives will put up a candidate - they sort of have to if they are going to pretend to be the party of Great Britain - but I imagine the luckless offering will barely leave their living room.  It's not just because it's Manchester, its because they would also rather have Starmer blundering on.  The Conservative strategy will be not to drawn votes from Reform.  Destroying Burnham and keeping Starmer in place will be a jolly good result for them.

The Greens will likely contest the seat effectively as well, because they will profit from the profile boost and because (like the other two) they benefit from having Starmer carry on.  So they may siphon off some crucial votes, letting Reform through the middle.  If this is pointed out to them, they can - justifiably - point out that if Labour wants their supporters' votes, maybe Labour should be a bit more like them and a bit less like the Tories or Reform; and since Starmer netted an undeserved 400 seat majority by splitting the opposition between Reform and the conservatives, he can hardly complain when the same trick is used against him.  After all, he's the only one in a position to do anything about electoral reform.

Also, of course, the British public HATE being manipulated like this.  I wouldn't be surprised to see them vote against Labour out of spite, disgusted by Burnham's hubris and neglect of his mayoral duty.

So nope to Burnham (likely won't get elected.)  

Nope to Streeting (Seems no-one likes him.)

Nope to Starmer (definitely no-one likes him.)

I can't see the Miliband souffle rising again.  Nor can I imagine Angela Rayner making a serious go of it.

My guess?  Shabana Mahmood. I don't like her politics much, but I think she might be grimly efficient, and a terrific foil to Nigel Farage.