The Labour Party under Andy Burnham

[Snow1964]

Early days in election results, and comments are running in local council elections thread.

Update on Labour only in this thread, at 06:45 Friday Labour doing poorly/dreadful (choose own descriptive word)

Labour retained 238 seats, lost 247, so losing over half

 

[sor]

MSN

...So Nigel used his EU passport as ID to vote. Funny how so many people that were behind campaigns to leave the EU had dual-nationality to ensure they wouldn't personally be impacted.

Far be it from me to defend that man, but burgundy passports were issued until the supplier changed. Mine is from 2019, it is burgundy but does not have the words EUROPEAN UNION on the cover. I reckon I can see the UK's coat of arms as he moves around and the gold shimmers a bit. You can also use an expired passport for voter ID purposes if you need to.

Although he was married to a German and his kids would be eligible, I don't think its ever been conclusively proven that he personally has an EU citizenship. The hypocrisy league tables are perhaps still led by Northern Irish unionist brexit supporters who made sure to get their Irish passports.

 

[Bantamzen]

I'm sure if Reform don't win as much as they hope, they're ready to claim foul play.

Amusingly someone on social media made a jokey post that when they went to vote they told the officials they were voting Green & got 10 voting slips, and the person in front who said they were going to vote Reform got thrown out. Another person claimed to have seen a delivery of erasers arriving at a polling station. Both have got a lot of bites from Reform supporters going loco.

 

[Yew]

Amusingly someone on social media made a jokey post that when they went to vote they told the officials they were voting Green & got 10 voting slips, and the person in front who said they were going to vote Reform got thrown out. Another person claimed to have seen a delivery of erasers arriving at a polling station. Both have got a lot of bites from Reform supporters going loco.

It does seem that they have an audience that is more likely to believe obvious untruths on the internet. This morning I saw an AI post of some Islamophobic rage-bait, that was labelled by the poster that it was an AI video shared by a Reform councillor, still attracting responses as if the content were real.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Early days in election results, and comments are running in local council elections thread.

Update on Labour only in this thread, at 06:45 Friday Labour doing poorly/dreadful (choose own descriptive word)

Labour retained 238 seats, lost 247, so losing over half

Forecasters now slashing their estimate of losses from 1800 to 1200 and thats in the arena of mid term losses for an incumbent government. Starmer lives on to fight another day but now needs to remove those that have been orchestrating behind the scenes so potentially a cabinet reshuffle.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Labour have bled votes away to the Greens and Starmer needs to heed this warning.

Green votes won't result in a Green win, as we've seen today. But they will result in a Labour defeat, as we've also seen today.

He needs to quit the performative cruelty. His core voter base are repulsed by it. He and McSweeney seemingly made the calculation that his core voter base had nowhere else to go, but these results show that isn't true. They're voting Green or they're staying at home.

 

[ainsworth74]

Labour have bled votes away to the Greens and Starmer needs to heed this warning.

Green votes won't result in a Green win, as we've seen today. But they will result in a Labour defeat, as we've also seen today.

He needs to quit the performative cruelty. His core voter base are repulsed by it. He and McSweeney seemingly made the calculation that his core voter base had nowhere else to go, but these results show that isn't true. They're voting Green or they're staying at home.

Sorry best we can do is more random immigrant bashing because some random BS triangulation nonsense that some idiot SPAD has done says that if they bash immigrants more then all the Reform voters will come back to Labour (they won't) and those going Green/Lib Dem/SNP/Plaid will come home in a General Election for fear or Reform (they won't). Also don't expect us to actually talk about things that are likely to be popular with our voter base like the Renters Reform Act that took effect last week.

 

[Tetchytyke]

those going Green/Lib Dem/SNP/Plaid will come home in a General Election for fear or Reform (they won't)

Quite.

The fear of the Reform bogeyman doesn't really cut through if you spend most of your time trying to ape what Reform are saying about migration and welfare benefit recipients.

Also don't expect us to actually talk about things that are likely to be popular with our voter base like the Renters Reform Act that took effect last week.

But that's resulted in all the landlords selling up and so everyone who was renting is now homeless. Or something.

 

[brad465]

Forecasters now slashing their estimate of losses from 1800 to 1200 and thats in the arena of mid term losses for an incumbent government. Starmer lives on to fight another day but now needs to remove those that have been orchestrating behind the scenes so potentially a cabinet reshuffle.

I think he may have been helped by Polanski's antics in the last week and subsequent drop in approval; so far the Greens have not made material gains, the best they've done is split Labour votes, which while not good for Labour, isn't as bad as it could have been.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Labour have bled votes away to the Greens and Starmer needs to heed this warning.

Green votes won't result in a Green win, as we've seen today. But they will result in a Labour defeat, as we've also seen today.

He needs to quit the performative cruelty. His core voter base are repulsed by it. He and McSweeney seemingly made the calculation that his core voter base had nowhere else to go, but these results show that isn't true. They're voting Green or they're staying at home.

Early days yet but Burnham has no option to get in his local area. Look at Tameside Labour were wiped out by Reform this morning. So any by election now in the North West is highly risky thus Starmer safe for now.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Early days yet but Burnham has no option to get in his local area. Look at Tameside Labour were wiped out by Reform this morning.

I've just gone and looked, and what is most interesting is that Reform haven't "wiped out" Labour in terms of vote share. What has happened is that Labour have lost votes to the Green Party and that has allowed Reform to come through the middle.

In the majority of seats that Reform have won, their margin of victory is less than the number of votes won by the Green candidate. In one of the seats they won, the second placed finisher was the Monster Raving Loony Party.

This really needs to be a wake-up call to Starmer.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

I've just gone and looked, and what is most interesting is that Reform haven't "wiped out" Labour in terms of vote share. What has happened is that Labour have lost votes to the Green Party and that has allowed Reform to come through the middle.

In the majority of seats that Reform have won, their margin of victory is less than the number of votes won by the Green candidate. In one of the seats they won, the second placed finisher was the Monster Raving Loony Party.

This really needs to be a wake-up call to Starmer.

OK in the context of seats up for reelection their were 19 - Labour lost 16, Torys 2 and Reform held 1 and gained 18 new seats. Doesn't give them a majority even with Tory support so Labour will probably still run the council with largest number of seats. Thus Burnham would have to take a high risk trying to ge elected in his home area.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Thus Burnham would have to take a high risk trying to ge elected in his home area.

You've completely missed my point.

Reform won because the vote was split between Labour and the Greens. Under First Past The Post, the winner takes it all. If those Green voters had instead voted Labour (and yes, if my granny had wheels she'd be a bus) then Labour would have won most of those seats. I think there was only two or three seats that they'd have still lost to Reform.

Burnham's risk would be as to whether those Green voters would vote Labour if his name was on the ballot paper. I think a good chunk of them would. But it would be a risk.

 

[greatkingrat]

You've completely missed my point.

Reform won because the vote was split between Labour and the Greens. Under First Past The Post, the winner takes it all. If those Green voters had instead voted Labour (and yes, if my granny had wheels she'd be a bus) then Labour would have won most of those seats. I think there was only two or three seats that they'd have still lost to Reform.

Burnham's risk would be as to whether those Green voters would vote Labour if his name was on the ballot paper. I think a good chunk of them would. But it would be a risk.

If you are going to add together the Green+Labour vote and claim it is one homogenous block, then why not add the Conservative vote to the Reform total?

 

[Tetchytyke]

If you are going to add together the Green+Labour vote and claim it is one homogenous block, then why not add the Conservative vote to the Reform total?

Because, in this case, the Conservatives got very few votes in Tameside. They didn't even put a candidate up in all the seats.

But yes, you do need to look at the Conservative-Reform block too when making these sorts of calculations. Would Tory voters vote Reform to stop Burnham? It's a consideration.

 

[jon0844]

I think he may have been helped by Polanski's antics in the last week and subsequent drop in approval; so far the Greens have not made material gains, the best they've done is split Labour votes, which while not good for Labour, isn't as bad as it could have been.

The leader of the Green party has been subjected to horrible abuse by sections of the media, not least the Trevor Phillips interview on Sky and subsequent images by some artists playing on antisemitic tropes.

There were also a number of people saying he isn't really Jewish to further undermine him.

I guess the media backing Reform (more so than even the Tories) knew to concentrate on the party leaders of both the Green and Labour party and it seems to have worked.

That's not to say there weren't also lots of AI generated images of supposed Green Party candidates which were all based on stereotypes of people in the LGBTQ+ communities.

 

[SJL2020]

BBC News (and other news outlets) are reporting that the First Minister of Wales Eluned Morgan "is expected lose her seat".

Wales election 2026: Labour admits defeat, as First Minister Eluned Morgan expected to lose her seat

Multiple sources tell the BBC that the Welsh Labour leader will lose her seat in Ceredigion Penfro.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Falcon1200]

The leader of the Green party has been subjected to horrible abuse by sections of the media,

The leader of the Green party has brought that entirely on himself by his own words and actions.

Despite the disastrous results Keir Starmer says he won't walk away; The man is utterly deluded, and anyway may not have much say in his future.

Challenge Starmer by Monday or I will, Labour MP tells cabinet ministers

In a BBC interview, Catherine West says she has 10 MPs prepared to back her and is "confident" enough people will come forward to trigger a contest.

www.bbc.co.uk

Starmer’s repeated assertion in his interview this morning that he wouldn’t walk away from the job, they say, "had gone down very, very badly" - and had potentially put his leadership in more danger as a result.

 

[YorkshireBear]

The leader of the Green party has brought that entirely on himself by his own words and actions.

Despite the disastrous results Keir Starmer says he won't walk away; The man is utterly deluded, and anyway may not have much say in his future.

Challenge Starmer by Monday or I will, Labour MP tells cabinet ministers

In a BBC interview, Catherine West says she has 10 MPs prepared to back her and is "confident" enough people will come forward to trigger a contest.

www.bbc.co.uk

We are all deluded if we think changing PM every 2 years is going to do anything for this country.

 

[Richard Scott]

We are all deluded if we think changing PM every 2 years is going to do anything for this country.

Not sure he's done anything positive for the country in the last 2 years!

 

[Purple Train]

Not sure he's done anything positive for the country in the last 2 years!

On that basis you may as well have got rid of Thatcher in 1981. I invite the reader to decide whether this would have been a good thing.

(Naturally I jest slightly. But the point stands that short-termism does nobody any favours.)

 

[YorkshireBear]

Not sure he's done anything positive for the country in the last 2 years!

Im no advocate of Keir, but you cannot implement significant change in two years in a country such as ours.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The leader of the Green party has been subjected to horrible abuse by sections of the media, not least the Trevor Phillips interview on Sky and subsequent images by some artists playing on antisemitic tropes.

There were also a number of people saying he isn't really Jewish to further undermine him.

It’s bizarre, isn’t it.

Keir Starmer’s wife and children are Jewish. Zack Polanski is Jewish. But they’re widely criticised by the media as being anti-Jewish. Lots of criticism, even in The Guardian, about how the Greens are antisemitic. Loss of media attention on how Starmer is a “Jew harmer.”

Nigel Farage (allegedly) used to make awful comments about gas chambers and ovens to Jewish classmates. But in the media it’s tumbleweed.

 

[Grecian 1998]

It's also worth pointing out that after Johnson stepped down in 2022, the Tories spent the summer playing Conservative Party Leader Idol rather than attempting to govern the country. They eventually elected the leader the membership wanted - who promptly had to resign after 6 weeks due to her less than successful economic policies. The Parliamentary Party then got their preferred candidate into the role without putting it to the membership.

From what I recall this was not looked upon favourably by the electorate, and the Tories' ratings never recovered, despite the fact that just 2 years earlier in 2020 people had been talking about how the Labour party had no chance of winning power until the late 2020s. Part of the appeal of Starmer as PM in 2024 was dull stability.

Since Labour don't have any obvious alternatives in Westminster currently, I cannot imagine the electorate would be elated at another party abandoning any attempt to govern for several months - it's not like there's any problems to try to resolve after all - in favour of another navel gazing leadership election. Most of the people outside the Labour party keenest for Starmer to stand down seem to be the people who want Labour to fail anyway, and are aware that a lengthy and introspective leadership election would be perfect for their purposes.

I'm only an occasional Labour voter and I can see why Starmer may be unappealing, but I really can't see how it would benefit Labour or indeed the country for him to stand down now without any apparent alternative strategy.

 

[RT4038]

The leader of the Green party has been subjected to horrible abuse by sections of the media, not least the Trevor Phillips interview on Sky and subsequent images by some artists playing on antisemitic tropes.

There were also a number of people saying he isn't really Jewish to further undermine him.

I guess the media backing Reform (more so than even the Tories) knew to concentrate on the party leaders of both the Green and Labour party and it seems to have worked.

This is not surprising at all. The Green party have decided to make 'the wealthy' their scapegoats; Labour have always had 'the wealthy' as scapegoats - the intensity of which has ebbed and flowed over the years. When the wealthy feel threatened they use their wealth to protect their position. Lest we forget what happened when the Spanish people elected a Government whose aims were the elimination of the wealthy, at the beginning of the 1930s........

 

[AlterEgo]

Lest we forget what happened when the Spanish people elected a Government whose aims were the elimination of the wealthy, at the beginning of the 1930s........

What a ridiculous statement.

 

[RT4038]

What a ridiculous statement.

That was a different era of course (13 or so years after another country had eliminated their wealthy people). Not that I am suggesting anything as drastic would happen here now, but the principle is the same.

 

[Bevan Price]

Before the 2024 general election, I was commenting that the economy was in such a mess that Labour would struggle to make things better. Sadly I was proved right, not helped by many Labour mistakes. But what is the solution for the country and for Labour ? My opinion about Farage is - "yuk"; his lot are likely to make things worse, not better, for the average citizen; a few "already rich" may get even richer. Many may come to regret voting for Reform.

And the Labour leader "problem" ? Some on the left would probably prefer a "Corbyn" style left winger, but 2019 showed that such types are unelectable as prime ministers. Some talk of Andy Burnham, but at present, he could easily lose any by-election if a vacancy occurred. Angela Rayner ? Popular with some MPs, but possibly too left wing to win a general election. Any one else ? Any suggestions ?

 

[weeklycommuter]

Despite the disastrous results Keir Starmer says he won't walk away; The man is utterly deluded, and anyway may not have much say in his future.

This is the reason I do not want either the Prime Minister or the Chancellor to walk away.

UK borrowing costs fall and pound rises after Starmer says he will stay as PM

Bond yields drop as market fears ease that Labour leader will be replaced by a more leftwing rival

www.theguardian.com

UK borrowing costs fall and pound rises after Starmer says he will stay as PM
Bond yields drop as market fears ease that Labour leader will be replaced by a more leftwing rival

UK government borrowing costs fell and the pound rose on Friday as Keir Starmer vowed to remain as prime minister despite the Labour party losing hundreds of council seats across England.

The yield – effectively the interest rate – had jumped earlier this week, amid fears that the prime minister could face a leadership challenge if the results from the local elections and the devolved parliaments in Scotland and Wales were particularly poor.
But after Starmer insisted he would not walk away, the yield on benchmark UK 10-year gilts was down 5 basis points, or 0.05 of a percentage point, at 4.89%, outperforming the equivalent US bonds.

Matthew Ryan, the head of market strategy at the global financial services company Ebury, said the markets feared higher government spending if Starmer were replaced by a more leftwing rival, such as Angela Rayner, Ed Miliband or Andy Burnham, funded by more tax hikes and higher borrowing.
Neil Wilson, an investor strategist at Saxo UK, said that “bond vigilantes are lurking”, attuned to the risk of political instability and the possibility that the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, might lose her job if Starmer departed.
“Political risks associated with a Starmer/Reeves defenestration are bound up with already rising fiscal and inflationary risks for the UK economy,” Wilson said.

 

[Richard Scott]

Im no advocate of Keir, but you cannot implement significant change in two years in a country such as ours.

Not asking for significant change but slightly better would have helped rather than significantly worse!