Watching Burnham's by-election purely as a spectator, I have no feel whatever for what's happening on the ground (rarely do the pundits either, these days). But one or two things stand out rather clearly: things that might not have been expected even just a month ago - which just goes to show.
> Burnham makes a pretty unconvincing King Across the Water / saviour of the nation. He comes across as an odd combination of entitled, nervous and petulant. Is he simply going to win anyhow? Who can judge? Voters only make up their minds on vague feelings of what 'seems right'.
> Restore looks distinctly as though it could upset Reform pretty badly. I wouldn't ordinarily cite Brendan O'Neill, and it's larded with phrases I wouldn't use, but this is a pertinent essay: "the Your Party of the right" is spot on, as is "his bit-part role in the chronicles of our times will be an entirely inglorious one".
For me, both these thoughts have relegated another couple of potential talking-points, namely the embarrassment for the Greens over their initial nominee; and the chronic inability of Reform ever to find unexceptionable candidates (let alone exceptional) - even for high-profile set-pieces like this. Think what it'll be like for both these arriviste parties at the GE!
If Restore does indeed trip up Reform on this outing, I suppose it might just be the urgent incentive Farage needs to square Lowe away in good time before the next GE. Otherwise he will be spending a lot more time with that £5m nest-egg.
Burnham, if it is indeed to be him this time, must I suppose be hoping that, once elected, Streeting will pull the trigger as promised. But maybe he won't! And if not, can that obscure woman who threatened to do it a few weeks back really muster the numbers? Would it look a bit off, if Burnham himself did it immediately following his victory? What we may be 100% sure of is that Team Starmer will have been strenuously working over every single Labour backbencher with the usual unsavoury combination of menaces, promises and flattery. It's amazing how many of a list of 81 can quietly slip away in such circumstances. Time is well and truly on Starmer's side, given his clear determination to bluster on.But then of course there's Events ... Mandy, Trump, who-knows-what. Starmer already has a long list of self-serving one-liners to fend off both the 'known unknowns' on that little list; and we'll be hearing a lot of them soon.
A run on popcorn seems like a safe bet. Anyone updating their January predictions on Starmer's survival this year?
ND
What's the problem with voters making up their own mind on which candidate to give their support to?
ReplyDeleteNo party is taking votes from another. If the only argument you can muster is "don't split the vote" then you're not worth listening to.
If the Reform voters all got behind Restore Britain, then we might sort out some of the actual pressing issues (bloated state and out-of-control immigration).
@Anon 6.05 - wasn't the same said about Reform not too long back?
ReplyDeleteYou can't win a GE on a single issue, so you're forced to add policies, and your followers start to fracture along various lines.
The moment you have to start acting professional, is the moment you start to disillusion and alienate an ever wider pool of support. It's not just the left that engage in being splitters.
CH
Is Burnham truly much different from Starmer, or even Boris? People who feel they should be PM, and bring no real ideology, philosophy, or plans for when they achieve it.
ReplyDeleteHe'll quickly find being wank material for the pre-menopausal isn't enough if he gets there. He'll almost certainly pull the trigger inside a month of getting back into Westminster, anything else and he'll be viewed a coward.
I'm still thinking Starmer will be PM at end of the year, he'll probably door to door for An-deh in Operation Keep the Vote In.
CH
CH - Starmer was conspicuous by his absence in Budapest on Saturday and in North London on Sunday. But still everyone hates Arsenal.
DeleteMuch to my surprise, I find myself warming* to Streeting when I see Mandelson call him "pathetic" for being upset at Israel's ongoing televised** slaughter of women and kids.
ReplyDelete* admittedly from -273k to -272k
** obviously not on the BBC
There's been talk on the Times and Specie podcasts that if Burnham wins the by-election he wants to manage the Manchester Mayoral election to show that he's the one that can beat Reform.
ReplyDeleteBloke ND - that's very shrewd. If (if) he pulls it off, it makes the issue of getting the 81 lined up much more straightforward for him - in fact, it becomes a coronation.
ReplyDeleteAnd a very early test for Farage's ability to deal with Restore.
What a ghastly lot they all are. The slimy Mandelson tells a few home truths about Starmer. F all to do and all day to play palace intrigues. Everyone blocks everyone else so nothing gets done. No way to run a ship.
ReplyDeleteThat Burnham looks a wrongun. So does Farage and Lowe. The more we hear about how Westminster 'works' the more it sounds a nest of vipers. Very wisely the Tories are keeping a low profile, just in case we are reminded they are all in the same nest. TBH that Kemi looks a wrongun too.
Here we are, a few weeks from the Summer recess followed by the Conference season then the run up to Christmas. Nothing done, 2026 shot to hell. Another year wasted. And always keep a-hold of nurse, for fear of finding something worse.
Nothing Westminster does matters but come the autumn Donald may have to change his tune - or not. That matters.
Good stuff, ND, as is this : https://gawaintowler.substack.com/p/the-burnham-chronicles?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=5591218&post_id=200143871&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=17sd2x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
ReplyDeleteRevisiting the Gorton one, watched Matt Goodwin on Politics yesterday - what an absolute Thornberry. His little snippy "manners, please!" for doing exactly what he'd been doing probably didn't do Reform any favours with anyone on the fence.
ReplyDeleteThere's the old canard about having a face for radio, he's got the personality for broom cupboards.
I always assumed Goodwin was an NPC careerist - he used to specialise in being an anti-BNP "expert" on the Today programme, and used that profile to get a politics professorship at Kent. Studying the BNP seems to have sent him native - as in Native Brit.Can't accuse him of careerism now - remember how Kilroy-Silk vanished without trace for changing his mind about some things?
DeletePity about Emily Thornberry, the perfect name for the full-bosomed heroine of a soft-porn novel.
I'm pretty sure we didn't summon the Ukrainian ambassador a couple of weeks ago when a couple of Ukrainian drones struck oil tanks in Latvia.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.reuters.com/world/two-drones-russia-crash-latvia-army-says-2026-05-07/
"The Russian ambassador in London Andrei Kelin was called in for a dressing down over the incident last week which left two people injured and violated the airspace of a Nato member state. The incident saw a drone crash into a block of flats in the eastern Romanian city of Galati, near the country’s border with Ukraine."
I hope he told the FO to FO.
What's Burnham's posish on the murder of the young lad by the Sikh family and, in particular, the appalling performance of the rozzers?
ReplyDelete"It's all very tragic. We must all feel for the parents and do whatever it was the Social Cohesion Unit told them to say"
Delete"There will be a police inquiry which I don't wish to pre-empt"
"Farage is a pooey-face"
Easy. "Our thoughts must be with the family." There you go.
ReplyDelete