The result is known.
Andy Burnham won resoundingly, increasing Labour's share of the vote in the Makerfield constituency by winning 55% of the vote, leaving Reform trailing in second place with 35%, far below expectations.
Restore did get more than 6% of the vote.
In combination, the far right got 42% of the vote, Labour 55%, and the other major political parties under 4% between them.
Nothing in this result changes the analysis that I provided yesterday. The Burnham effect increased the Labour vote by 31%, and reduced that of Reform by 16%. People flocked to beat fascists. It was an exceptional factor. People in Manchester voted in the hope that Manchester would get a Prime Minister. That situation will not recur.
And so, what now?
Burnham says Labour must change, but has chosen a group of economic advisers who are neoliberal to their core, including a former director of the Office for Budget Responsibility, Andy Haldane, formerly from the Bank of England, and Lord Jim O'Neill, once of Goldman Sachs. In summary, nothing will change with people like that on his advisory team.
Let's not pretend otherwise. Burnham is going to play to the markets, not to the people, continuing with Labour Party policy that long ago forgot what the party's roots were and whom it is meant to serve. Ignore the rhetoric of the victory speech. Look at the man's intentions based upon the people he's already chosen to advise him.
No one can doubt now that Burnham will be Prime Minister. Starmer has to decide today, or at the very least over the weekend, whether to allow an orderly progression or instead create a messy situation which cannot help Labour. But whichever happens, nothing changes the fact that if Burnham chooses to be neoliberal to his core, he has no answers relevant to the people of Makerfield or the UK as a whole. In that case, come 2029, Labour will face just as many difficulties and the same potential annihilation as it does now under Starmer.
In summary: everything changed, and nothing changed. The single transferable party is still in charge.
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Neoliberal tricks.
‘plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose’
There seems to be an assumption either by the media or Burnham and his supporters that he will take over from Starmer as PM
But why?
Because it will happen?
Ask yourself this – Why would he step down as Mayor of Manchester if he wasn’t assured of becoming PM?
Who else wkould the party choose? Starmer, Streeting, Rayner, an unknown or. someone who has just beaten Reform?
Merely the only thing, that still sets this single transferable party apart from the far-right is its weakened label of “anti-fascism”.
A label that merely consists of “We’re not the far-right but they have ideas that should be considered”.
An already very wobbly label that, rather sooner than later, will fall completely off.
A label that doesn’t describe the ingredients is useless and the labelled product is then perceived as a fraud.
Anti-Fascism is much more than that and that’s why it’s so popular:
It’s MMT, that provides the means for necessary things.
It’s a politics of care, that provides safety and security for everyone.
It’s a courageous state, that really has values and stands for them.
Just talking about this change over and over again without delivering it because of blindness in the left eye, will only hurt yourself.
What John Oliver said at the end on his latest show of “Last Week Tonight” is very true:
“You can’t promise change only to turn around and capitulate to the right on key principles that you’re supposed to stand for.
Because not only will you lose people to your left, the right will just keeping moving the goal posts again and again.
And you’ll only have yourself to blame.”
He was right
Now we’ll be inundated with lots of guff from MSM analysis, speculation, alarm, reassurance, it’ll keep the jurnos busy while the real issues here and across the world are ignored while us mushrooms are kept in the dark and fed sh*t.
Correct
Agree with your analysis. Having Jim O’Neil of Cut welfare as an advisor says it all. Burnham needs to raise taxes on higher earning people like Jim O’Neil, but that does not look likely!
Burnham has hired ‘three wise men’ (all neoliberals)as economic advisors, Andy Haldane, Jim O’Neill, and Richard Hughes. The only positive I can take from this, is that these three will have to put their heads above the parapet and defend the indefensible a lot more often than they do at present.
I envisage their questioners asking them to explain why the country is not a household and why it cannot go bust. Anticipating your reaction, Richard, I will not hold my breath waiting for sensible and honest answers.
They will hide from view.
Who will the new Chancellor be, I wonder? He would be mad to keep Reeves.
I think people are projecting a lot onto Burnham. I don’t expect wonders or even that much; a little shift left to being centrist.
However, he’s only really got two and a half years if he did become PM and has to fight the Treasury and BoE along with the media if he wants to implement politics of care (which he doesn’t), so I expect him to go for the easy wins. Being PM is, in my view, a poisoned chalice.
I think everyone would prefer order to chaos with everything going on in the world right now.
Back in 2015 Burnham was deeply ineffectual, receiving only a third of the votes achieved by Corbyn in the Labour leadership election. A humbled Burnham immersed himself in Mancunian community interests and, on the whole, got a thumbs up. Unlike Starmer who cares nothing for ‘Society’.
Surely this must give Burnham food for thought. A sudden volte face, to a politics of care, would be enormously attractive to the disenfranchised millions. He would be an instant national hero side stepping, in one deft move, all the other political parties and become the focus for national unity.
He needs to act fast though, starting Monday, to keep ahead of malevolent lobbies.
Otherwise, it is as you say: more of the same and Labour’s final lost opportunity.
I today received a flier email from Clive Lewis, an MP that I have a lot of time for, which, among other things, extolled the ascension of Andy Burnham.
I’ve sent him a copy of the MMT Source book urging him to get it in front of said messiah asap.
Will anything change….we can but try.
Many thanks
What pity Burnham didn’t choose Mariana Mazzucato as adviser instead of Haldane and O’Neill. Not a recognised MMT economist but, perhaps better, the author of ‘The Entrepreneurial State’. She would have explained the proud record of government, rather than private enterprise, in expanding the economic growth of this country and advised Burnham on continuing that essential process, which like all neoliberals, is ostensibly his aim.
I have sent Andy a copy of Mariana’s book in the vain attempt to dissuade him from continuing the neoliberal mistakes of his predecessors.