IT was an incredibly principled decision by Sir Keir Starmer to block Andy Burnham from standing for Parliament.
And this is how Sir Keir might have stated that principle: “As a politician, I feel it is the most important duty, before all others, to protect my own arse. And my job. And my income. And while doing so, to shaft any rivals good and proper. So, with apologies Andy, jog on, you melt.”
It WAS Starmer’s decision, of course. Yes, it was the party’s National Executive Committee which actually ruled 8-1 to ban Burnham from standing in Gorton and Denton.
But the NEC is basically Starmer and the Starmerettes.
When he says jump, they reply: “How high, Sir Keir? And should we pirouette, too?”
You’re going to see open warfare in Labour all the way through to spring
Rod
And all it means for our hapless and loathed PM is that he has delayed his day of execution. And probably not by very much, either.
What we will now have is a by-election which will most likely be won by Reform.
Why? Because the voters will be annoyed Burnham isn’t standing.
And if Burnham HAD stood, I suspect all the lefties would have voted tactically for him.
And Labour would have held the seat.
Now, though, you’re going to see open warfare in Labour all the way through to spring. They will be in the news for all the wrong reasons. As usual.
And the by-election itself will be a jamboree of madness.
First, Labour will choose someone useless to fight the seat.
And then the left-wing vote will be cut into slices.
It was rumoured that the dorky breast-whispering halfwit Zack Polanski might stand for the party he leads, the Greens.
That will take a hefty tranche of the nose-ringed, blue-haired, lifestyle lefties.
It is also probable that the Magic Grandpa And Mrs Fruitcake Alliance — better known as the far, far Left Your Party — will put up a candidate.
We may even see — and this will be exciting — a candidate called something like Tariq Jihadi from the Kill All The Jews Hamas Forever Party standing. And then there’s the Liberal Democrats.
I’m telling you, the Labour vote will be cut to ribbons.
Not least because an awful lot of the older Labour vote might drift over to Reform.
Either way, if I were Kemi Badenoch, I’d tell the Tory candidate to keep their head down and let Reform have a great win.
Perhaps preparing the way for an informal coalition at the next election.
And if Labour loses the seat — the blame will all be on Sir Keir for having stopped Burnham standing.
The large pile of poo, with a lit banger inside it, will be deposited on his doorstep.
It made me wonder why Starmer didn’t do what he usually does with elections he doesn’t fancy the look of.
Just cancel it, like he has with one-third of the council elections which Labour were set to lose.
An enormous and unforgivable assault on democracy. But Starmer couldn’t care less about that.
A challenge to Starmer’s leadership is almost certain before the end of the year
Rod
The NEC has given all manner of high-minded reasons for banning the Manchester mayor.
In a statement it said: “The NEC believes that causing an unnecessary election for the position of Greater Manchester mayor would have a substantial and disproportionate impact on party campaign resources ahead of the local elections.”
What a load of egregious balderdash. It was done to stop Burnham, end of.
So, in May, get ready for a dreadful performance from Labour in the council elections AND the probable loss of a parliamentary seat to Reform.
All Starmer’s fault.
Not only that but he has also estranged a whole bunch of the most senior and popular figures in Government.
Angela Rayner thought Burnham should stand. So did Net Zero chump Ed Miliband. And Lucy Powell.
Even Wes Streeting pretended he wanted Burnham to stand.
And I bet Wes is laughing his head off now. Because he is probably the big winner in all of this.
He supposedly has 200 MPs backing his bid to take over from Starmer. Probably a few more today. And he now has a clear run at the job.
A challenge to Starmer’s leadership is almost certain before the end of the year.
The tragedy for Labour is that the one person who might have led the party to electoral success won’t have a chance to do so.
Instead it will be battled out between Streeting, Rayner and, gawd help us, Miliband.
And what about Burnham?
He’s a canny politician and rightly very popular in Manchester. I once voted for him to be leader of the Labour Party, back in 2015.
He has the votes of the soft Left of the party as well the centrists.
And those old Blue Labour people like me who think the party should try standing up for the working class, rather than being the party of the metropolitan middle class and public sector.
But he probably made his move a little too soon. Perhaps not realising how ruthless the PM can be when his own backside is in the firing line.
Going for the seat was a tacit admission of a challenge to Starmer, no matter what Burnham says.
The trouble is, challenging a leader requires great timing.
David Miliband left it too long to challenge Gordon Brown, for example.
But Burnham still has a big future ahead and an easy base from which to fight his corner.
Being mayor is a great job: all you have to do is SPEND money. So he’ll be back soon.
And in the meantime we can all sit back and admire the carnage as Labour once again tears itself to pieces.
TRUMP THROWING IT ALL AWAY
TRUMP’S presidency seems to be unravelling. His ICE goons have been let loose in Minnesota. And are killing people.
On the world stage now, nobody believes a word he says. He has the image of a flat-track bully – fine when threatening weaker nations.
But lacking a spine when it comes to standing up to the likes of Putin and Xi.
And he is given to making stupid observations, like the one that European troops were not on the front line in Afghanistan. Which he then had to retract.
It is all such a tragedy – as Trump is essentially correct on so many big issues. But right now, he’s throwing it all away.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE was a black Jewish woman, according to a feminist oddball who has somehow managed to get a book published.
Irene Coslet argues that the writer of Hamlet etc was actually Emilia Bassano, a Tudor woman who was a Moroccan Jew.
No, Irene. You are a huckster.
But it is remarkable how publishers are happy to print such arrant nonsense.
And yet get very touchy when they are presented with books which tell the truth about transgenderism, for example, or race relations.
GOOD news! The Green Party is being sued by a woman who was suspended for not taking fairy pronouns seriously.
You didn’t know fairies have pronouns? Oh, they do, they do.
In the never-neverland beyond the clouds, where Green Party people live, those who identify as fairies use the pronouns “fae/faer”.
Nope, not kidding. Anyway, Emma Bateman decided this was a bit silly and said as much in a speech.
As a consequence, the Green Party suspended her. They said she had been “insensitive, uncivilised, disparaging, unethical, bullying, and could have caused offence”.
Not anywhere near insensitive enough in my book, but there we are.
Sue them for every penny they have, Ms Bateman.
