The Burnham Programme

@RegWhispers He's been a minister before I wouldn't worry about it

Has he been vetted?

@even_thorizon @Steven_Swinford @JohnRentoul @oliver_wright You'll be fine poppet

@Steven_Swinford @JohnRentoul @oliver_wright Starmer exceptionally graceful, as ever. Burnham taking victory lap photos yesterday, exceptionally ungraceful, as ever. The contrast is stark. What a catastrophic mistake has been made.

Exclusive from @oliver_wright Andy Burnham is understood to have held secret talks with Sir Keir Starmer, as the prime minister pledged to smooth his transition to power Starmer was said to have left Downing Street for an hour-long “off-site” meeting with Burnham — the first time the two men had spoken since he returned to Westminster Starmer decided today to allow the cabinet secrerary to begin transition talks with the former Greater Manchester mayor even though nominations for the Labour leadership contest had not yet opened thetimes.com/article/2f9f88…

@somecallme2019 @Steven_Swinford @SamCoatesSky @oliver_wright What stinks exactly

@Steven_Swinford @SamCoatesSky @oliver_wright I’m a Labour voter, I like Starmer and I like burnham but all this stinks. The country are going to crucify Labour at the next election over this and there’s nothing burnham can do about it now. Any reprise will be very short lived

@SMieran @Steven_Swinford @JohnRentoul @oliver_wright "No kier, please don't help me prepare for government, people on twitter will say it's ugly behaviour"

@Steven_Swinford @JohnRentoul @oliver_wright So anti democratic and entitled by Burnham. Just ugly behaviour.

@_bloodyidiots @PippaCrerar @oliver_wright Everything you said here is wrong

@PippaCrerar @oliver_wright So we're swapping a Southern socialist that's never had a proper job for a Northern socialist that's never had a proper job. Brilliant.

NEW: I'm told that Andy Burnham has now held talks with Keir Starmer (as per @oliver_wright) for the first time since before the Makerfield by-election. No 10 sources confirm the PM and his likely successor had an hour-long "off site" meeting earlier today. Downing Street has said Burnham can start receiving government briefings from the civil service "as soon as possible" to help with transition of power. Starmer has agreed the new Labour MP can meet with Antonia Romeo, the cabinet secretary, to discuss plans.

@CooF__ @PippaCrerar @oliver_wright He's been a minister before I wouldn't fret about it

@PippaCrerar @oliver_wright Has he been vetted or does that not count?

@AnnSpencer001 @JenniferJS_ @TedUrchin @UKLabour the party is about more than kier obviously.

@theideareview @JenniferJS_ @TedUrchin @UKLabour Why would they??

I wish @UKLabour well, but as a result of Keir Starmer being hounded out of office, I can no longer support Labour as a paid up member. It’s not what I voted for. My direct debit came out today. It will be the last. It is cancelled, as is my membership.

I don’t think I’ve seen a Labour MP with as much aura as Andy Burnham. He was favourite to become PM whilst still a mayor, An MP voluntarily gave up their seat for him, he breezed through the local elections. No other MP is willing to challenge him. He’ll become PM with no contest. Insane.

Keith Starmer's resignation speech was simultaneously petty, ungracious, self congratulatory, tone deaf, self absorbed, solipsistic and obnoxious - just like the man himself.

@DanLord78 if and when he becomes pm you will hear from him. until then all you have is the *checks notes 500 interviews and written pieces hes done over the last month

Can we finally hear from Andy Burnham about what he intends to do as PM, on welfare, defence, net zero… Or are we all just going to keep going on in blind faith? This is getting silly now #labour #LabourLeadership

@normanelliottuk @NicholasTyrone thankfully we have burnham instead

@NicholasTyrone Starmer II won’t be any better.

People disliked Starmer so intensely because he promised change and delivered a worse version of the same. This feeling was heightened by everyone’s desperation for change. That’s it.

@DavidJReed100 @afneil porkies it is

@theideareview @afneil Watch his recent interview with Andrew Marr

Team Burnham pressed Keir Starmer to stay on over the summer to give their man time to prepare for power. Starmer rebuffed them in no uncertain manner: you’re forcing me out because you think I’m useless. So why should I wait til September at your convenience? As I said on @TimesRadio yesterday, this is not an amicable handover. Starmer was very badly prepared for power in July 2024. Burnham is considerably less well-prepared.

@CharR47013 @_PeterGriffy @Juicefrrrr3 We don't even need 1 goal. We need Portugal to reach the final

@_PeterGriffy @Juicefrrrr3 3 goals minimum

Ronaldo masterclass today whether the haters like it or not.

@shearernorthern Wrong

The good news is there is plenty of time before next GE for people to see Burnham is exactly the same. No change.

@OfSymbols Starmer was mendacious and dishonest

Ive not been clear enough in the past few days about the Starmer isn’t and never was the problem. And if Burnham fails to make a decisive break from Starmers team, it’s as likely he’ll go the same way.

@danhind That was yesterday. Today his strength is that the plp are prepared to follow him

Who on earth thought this was a good idea? Burnham's strength is his distance from SW1's culture of insincerity and power worship. He should be photographed with anyone other than this collection of Mandelson-approved lobbyists and dead-eyed third sector psychos.

@IsabelOakeshott @AndyBurnhamGM @reformparty_uk Oh dear

Based on the mood in Makerfield today, I think @AndyBurnhamGM has made a massive miscalculation. Just got a feeling that @reformparty_uk is going to win, by a significant margin

@LastBlairite ten years of mean spirited editorialising begins now. if he announced a cabinet before he was in post you'd scream about arrogance

@Depresseanpaul @lesthecroc @sharpedges756 owen was right . this also come before the starmpurges

@lesthecroc @sharpedges756 It’s the weak and contemptible impulse he has to not be a hypocrite. It serves no one but himself.

*cough*

Keir Starmer was not merely a disappointment. He is a mendacious figure of ethical decrepitude, a man who won the Labour Party leadership based on promises that he jettisoned five seconds after winning - a Labour leader who dared banish from the Labour Party not only his predecessor but also remarkable human beings like director Ken Loach - the gentleman who has taken the historic Labour Party and transformed it into a vessel for the very oligarchy it was elected to restrain. Consider the litany of Starmer’s moral and logical failures. He promised a 'different Britain', yet his actions were a masterclass in Tory-lite politics—using the same maxed-out credit card analogies that once served the austerity brigades to justify his own failure of vision. He promised a human rights lawyer’s approach but he embraced a racist-lite version of Farage. On Europe, Starmer promised Brexiteers that Brexit is Brexit yet stood before those who yearn to rejoin the European Union, winked at them to make them feel that Britain would gradually reconnect, even rejoin, with the EU while offering nothing of substance. This is not leadership; it is a fraud. And then there's the manner in which Starmer and his government rushed to offer Israel unequivocal support in pursuing its genocide in Gaza, sacrificing precious political and civil liberties in the UK by imprisoning grandmothers, priests and peaceful activists who dared support Palestine Action, an organisation that Starmer and his minions proscribed as terrorists for practising the usual activist tactics of trespassing to spray paint military planes that had demonstrably aided in the genocide. To add insult to injury, Starmer performed the diplomatic pantomime of recognising a Palestinian state, in a manner that ensured it would never happen. But above all else, this is a government that has learned nothing from the post-2008 era. Starmer and his Chancellor are playing the same tired austerity game while enabling and empowering the Finance Curse perpetrated by the City of London, throwing in forgood measure cuts in international aid to fund a military spending trickle under the guise of a "Strategic Defence Review" . It is the same old doctrine: austerity for the masses, socialism for the financiers and the arms dealers. History will remember Mr Starmer as a man without conviction, a Prime Minister who offers not a shred of honesty, but merely the cruel illusion of change. He is ethically decrepit because he had chosen, consciously, to abandon principle for power. And for that, history will indict him. Good riddance, I say. #block-6a38f4108f08d76ddac5a1da" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">theguardian.com/politics/live/…