The FT are reporting that he's going to announce the transition this week, potentially as soon as tomorrow:
It sounds like it. Well, 2 years of Burnham then before the country and PLP tire of him and then onto someone else. The only question is whether we will have a General Election following Burnham's coronation.
There's no convenient smooth process either way: a "coronation" avoids a protracted divisive leadership contest and also an extremist in the eyes of the members but not MPs getting in, but also means policy areas are untested and unscrutinised. A contest has the reverse pros and cons. Theresa May demonstrated the challenges of a coronation, while Liz Truss demonstrated the challenges of a protracted leadership contest.
I wouldn't say lost, but open to all kinds of possibilities.
I agree, I guess I was once a Conservative indirectly through university in 1980, but I think the Labour Party in general and Andy Burnham in particular have behaved disgustingly, little interest in running the country and factional fights for power instead.
Yep. The PM is not a president. They are whoever can command a majority in the house of commons.
Heath? Although technically I suppose he didn't lose the 1974 election given it was a hung Parliament.
Correct. Technically he did lose, but Labour also didn't win...
Not sure where you get the idea that the current situation is somehow reprehensible or 'parties behaving badly'
Depends on the definition of "lost" - a Labour majority is almost impossible on current performance, but I wouldn't rule out a hung parliament with Labour as the largest party. In that instance you could say Burnham is acting accordingly as he's talked up PR a lot, which a Labour-led coalition will almost certainly have to adopt.
I think even a "labour largest party" arrangement is now implausible. It is very rare that governments recover from a polling situation like this.
More likely that a Labour-led coalition would put the topic to another referendum "to be democratic", which they would then ensure was unsuccessful as it's easy to scare people off electoral reform. We've been around this one before!
You can not lose that which you didn't have in the first place
There isn't a hope of him having 10 years in power. All the structural issues that brought down Sunak and now Starmer, will also bring down Burnham within several years at most. Cost of living being the mainstay - the PMs can't fix it because the UK economy is broken as a result of excess borrowing and Brexit. Unless and until we set conditions for re-entry into the EU and Single Market, we are going to burn through PMs. And we probably have a dreadful and crippling diversion through the far-right before we get to a position where we can re-enter the EU.
We've also never had a polling situation where 4 or even 5 parties are sustaining polling within a few % of each other while still having FPTP*. If Labour were polling their current value and either the Tories or someone else is polling 35+%, I would agree with you, but right now there is far too much going on that has never happened in UK politics before.
Streeting and Rayner are 42 and 46 respectively, and both have been MPs for only 11 years. They have at least 20 years to have a crack at becoming PM.
Much like Labour were doing when the tories were chopping & changing?
The minor partners will be wise to this now and will collapse the government if a referendum is implemented.
This is an under-discussed issue certainly: even Cameron had only been an MP for 9 years before becoming PM, and over half those years were as Leader of the Opposition. It says a lot about his lack of experience that he could only manage a hung parliament situation off the back of a major recession combined with Labour fatigue in office (and bigot-gate). May and Johnson had more years' political service (18 for May, and Johnson 7 years plus 8 years as Mayor, then another 4 years as MP), but May scored an own goal then was grappled with a party situation even Thatcher would have struggled to contain, and Johnson, well, no explanation needed.
There is another irony, even if a little unlikely.
This seems more realistic and is why I am even less certain Burnham will make a good PM. He is not a man who will deal with conflicting priorities well and he will struggle to make unpopular choices.
