I'm off on a short hol, but I leave you with my view - a prediction that has been simmering for 18 months, as you know (check the Mili tag).
- It's clear enough why Streeting might feel his only chance (ever) is to move now
- He may get 80 signatures, but he won't get elected
- Not sure if Starmer will stand and fight - John Major did (and won), but that was different in material ways
- In any case, if Streeting moves, Miliband wins
ND
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PS: the lefties at Novara are often quite good on lefty stuff, but made a really ridiculous assessment on Tuesday evening. They said Miliband doesn't fly "because he's been rejected by the electorate before". FFS!
- The electorate ain't being consulted
- errr ... Harold Wilson 1974?
- errr ... Donald Trump 2024?
- - plus loads of French and Italian politicians who think nothing of going round for a second bite
Enjoy your holiday!
ReplyDeleteIf Streeting triggers this over the next few days, then yes, we're going to get Miliband. I'm still hoping he'll back down, and we get the delight of Burnham losing a by-election, along with Labour losing the Manchester Mayorality, and Labour's soft-left going into meltdown.
If we get to see Clive Lewis' face as that happens, should it happen, I suspect it'll be meme-worthy.
Miliband plainly prefers to use others ambitions to further his own, having triggered this cycle off in the knowledge Streeting wouldn't be able to resist, and he could come along as the "if-I-must" saviour of the soft-left. Didn't think he had it in him.
He couldn't even beat a bacon sandwich. Anyhoo, will Labour's Jew-bashing supporters support him?
ReplyDeleteCould have added
ReplyDeleteErrr ... Churchill 1951 !
I think most low info Labour supporters, especially Guardianistas, don't appreciate how much 2024 was a repudiation of Johnson/Sunak Tories. Vote literally halved. So they fail to appreciate that Labour got in by default, not because of a surge of enthusiasm for them.
ReplyDelete(and to be fair Trump probably won in 2020. In my uni days the 'Making of the President " series were set texts, and we duly read up about Nixon and Kennedy in 1960. Only fifty years later was it revealed that Nixon was done out of Illinois by the Daley machine)
ReplyDeleteAnd out of Texas by the LBJ machine. And both were known widely in the 1970s.
DeleteWhat About the SBS Colonel?? At least he could do his own close protection !!!
ReplyDeleteWell, he's quit, but so far no actual challenge from him.
ReplyDeleteIt's quite comical.
Looks like my hope for Burnham losing a by-election is alive and well.
ReplyDeleteAs I said, quite comical, but what a shambles. We've a dead duck PM for how long? Or will he step down to kick Burnham?
CH
Assume Streeting and Burnham have done a deal - swap supporters as necessary.
ReplyDeleteOnce West triggers the frenzy, Streeting acts to get the 81 MPs required to trigger the contest.
If Burnham is unable to stand, Streeting gets the pledge of support. If Burnham does stand, Streeting returns the favour, so that Burnham wins in the first round. It's ranked preference.
It's looks at bit grim if Starmer can't secure the board at the first attempt, has to hang on into the second.
https://order-order.com/2026/05/15/streeting-burnham-must-be-allowed-to-stand-in-makerfield/
ReplyDeleteAnd there we go.
(It also looks a bit grim if Burnham/Rayner/Miliband can't sweep the board first count either.)
I think the point about Miliband is that if he became the Prime Minister there would be a much stronger case for having a general election as he has been rejected as Prime Minister before. He would not go for it but it would help to unite the country against him. Is it just me or does Miliband conjure up visions of an earnest 1950s black and white war film about boffins defeating a new Boche radar operating in the hitherto unknown Miliband frequency?
ReplyDeleteDavid Miliband loved the UK so much he headed for NYC the moment he lost out on the Labour leadership, Sunak chose California when voters rejected him. Blair headed for business class and seems to have been anywhere but here ever since. Patriots all.
ReplyDeleteSunak, to his credit, is still very active in his Yorkshire constituency.
DeleteDitto re your holiday, enjoy. Just back from the bottom end of the Dordogne, the market in Eymet had an English butcher's stall, there's a Brit grocers, and the estate agents ads are in both languages. But it is very uncrowded and very pretty, lots of lovely medieval small towns, a fair few dating from the times when the English crown controlled the area.
ReplyDeleteCame home on a Chinese built ferry and saw two Yutong coaches on the motorway. Depressing.
Yes, I know, mass activist support isn't mass electoral support. Just wondered if there were thousands outside Westminster in the last few days:
ReplyDelete"Corbyn, who later beat the challenger, Owen Smith, by 61.8% to 38.2% of the membership, said he had taken succour during the crisis from shows of mass support. After the parliamentary Labour party meeting, thousands had assembled to cheer him on outside the gates of Westminster palace."
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/may/16/jeremy-corbyn-target-labour-coup-keir-starmer-andy-burnham-wes-streeting-angela-rayner-leadership