Sean

“Manchesterism” is working. Good to get proof of that today from the @CentreforCities.

EXC Andy Burnham is expected to back Shabana Mahmood’s immigration reforms as he fights to win the Makerfield by-election The mayor is understood to be supportive of the proposals to limit legal and illegal migration Story with @kiranstacey theguardian.com/politics/2026/…

'Why should this always mean women being quieter and smaller?' Shelagh Fogarty reacts to Andy Burnham's interview with @lewis_goodall last April, where he said the UK needs a 'new sense of consensus' on the trans debate.

THE LONG COUP by @PronouncedAlva As Keir Starmer looked around his cabinet table on Tuesday morning, he met the gazes of people who had told him, only days before, that his time was up. Many of them had reached that conclusion more in sorrow than in anger on Monday night, as the calls for Starmer to resign mounted and the Prime Minister himself experienced a dark night of the soul. Others had told him it was over, starkly and brutally, and then briefed it to the press. Starmer is furious with many of them, but he carried on like it was business as usual. Such is the oddity of the very polite, protracted coup that is underway: Starmer is carrying on while his whole party rallies round the man who hopes to oust him. Inside No 10, things are “very, very odd,” as one insider describes it. After a week of high adrenaline and moments where it all looked to be over, people are picking themselves up, dusting themselves off and returning to “semi-normal”. Many in Labour are relieved that the state of paralysis that has gripped the party for months is now set to come to an end. The circular questions over whether and how to replace Starmer have been answered. Yet a new stasis has set in while Labour waits for Andy Burnham to fight the by-election in Makerfield. Starmer’s anger with many cabinet colleagues stems from a feeling of  betrayal, both personal and political. He is frustrated that positive news for the government – on economic growth and NHS figures – were relegated to the fourth or fifth item on the news last week, bumped by manoeuvrings of Burnham and Wes Streeting. Egged on by figures like Steve Reed, the pugnacious housing secretary, Starmer has adopted a new mindset: “keep on fighting until you can fight no longer”. In public, Starmer continues to insist he will fight a leadership challenge against him, however misguided that seems to others. “He doesn’t like being pushed around. It makes him fight harder,” one ally observes. Cover illustration by Tim McDonagh

'The contemporary Labour brand is now far more commonly associated with the obsessions of metropolitan liberalism than with worker representation.' Can Andy Burnham fix it? @DespoticInroad 👇 buff.ly/R74WI8m