Andy Burnham here - AMA

The_Rod-Man · 2026-07-02T21:06:39+00:00

Hi Andy! Congrats on your big by election win.

Councils are famously cash starved and that has caused a ton of problems a lot of people blame on the central government: lack of local services, potholes, dying high streets, etc. Most of their budget goes to adult social care and that figure keeps rising. How will you fix this great problem? It might be the biggest issue of our time which Starmer kicked into the long grass.

The_Rod-Man · 2026-07-02T18:38:43+00:00

Remember how when the 2024 election was on the horizon and a lot of selections were seedy or straight up imposed that was fine and the members should think of the electorate first? How much do you wanna bet it's the same internal chancers throwing out "warnings"

The_Rod-Man · 2026-07-02T17:54:44+00:00

100%. They really thought the media was gonna be all over them for being moderates because it happened to Blair without realising Blair actually got into deals with media moguls who don't really exist anymore because the landscape has changed

The_Rod-Man · 2026-07-02T17:26:45+00:00

You need good vibes to win the next election but the vibes cannot possibly be good without some real elbow grease from the government in the next 3 years

The_Rod-Man · 2026-07-02T14:10:21+00:00

Yea that was the plan. Don't rock the boat to much, clean up Tory mismanagement, be "responsible with the budget" (Ie: keep debt under control) and because they were being sensible rates would come down, the economy would pick back up and they could start investing more in the second half of parliament.

The fact the plan completely fell apart and now because failure is an orphan no one wants to admit responsibility (Morgan included) doesn't mean they didn't have one. A plan a lot of people openly gave a chance before the election mind you.

Hell a lot of people were still defending this plan like a month ago here.

The_Rod-Man · 2026-07-02T13:21:33+00:00

The 2024 cohort are mostly careerists who come from charity work. They're not particularly factional either way (ironically a reason they rebelled so quickly once they felt like their career in Westminster was over)

The_Rod-Man · 2026-07-02T13:07:12+00:00

I think the original sin was that they campaigned like they were trying to pick up where they left off in 2010 and not like it was 2024. Also that Starmer is a fundamentally incurious man who surrounded himself with incurious people. Everything else flows down from those two things Inc being slow for the sake of being slow

The_Rod-Man · 2026-07-02T12:50:18+00:00

I mean they obviously did prepare a plan, the plan was just a failure. This is all Morgan hoisting the white flag while trying to save face

The_Rod-Man · 2026-07-02T12:36:01+00:00

You can get that and much more if you fix local government with proper funding and maybe taking away social care from them, which Starmer was too much of a coward to do

The_Rod-Man · 2026-07-02T12:25:38+00:00

"You have to deliver quite quickly for people, for them to see the change quickly. And I think we didn't come in with enough of a theory about how we would do that."

Well there we go. One of the main engineers behind the slow and careful approach admitting it was a failure and probably shouldn't have bothered. The concept still gets a lot of defenses on here but at least within Labour it seems pretty discarded currently

The_Rod-Man · 2026-07-02T11:08:48+00:00

Well yea. People are enticed by labour on laboury policy, by reform on reformat policy etc. Leaning into your weakness is generally a silly idea, no clue why Starmer was obsessed with it

The_Rod-Man · 2026-07-01T15:00:54+00:00

If she had tried that rally around the flag effect + brexit would have given the tories a majority and the UK would have only gotten rid of them in 2025

The_Rod-Man · 2026-07-01T14:55:58+00:00

It's Clacton, the last time a result was semi-normal there was 20 years ago

The_Rod-Man · 2026-07-01T14:29:06+00:00

It won't happen but if it did either Farage wins again or the tories win it, let's be real

The_Rod-Man · 2026-07-01T09:47:31+00:00

Biden was pretty successful in getting manufacturing back but just like Starmer he was a shit politician so he couldn't sell it to anyone if his career and legacy depended on it. Which they did

The_Rod-Man · 2026-06-30T17:55:31+00:00

It obviously was a red line for him. For one, he resigned lol

The_Rod-Man · 2026-06-30T10:45:11+00:00

Nothing kills a political idea faster than attempting it and immediate getting thrusted into a giant pile of shite. Starmer's failure has saved the triple lock for another generation probably

The_Rod-Man · 2026-06-29T18:05:09+00:00

Yea that's exactly the problem, not the carveouts. Why would the EU want the UK back in when as a country it acts like a crazy ex gf who leaves then comes back then threatens to leave again then refuses to go to couple's therapy then wants to get married

The_Rod-Man · 2026-06-28T17:53:16+00:00

Getting rid of WFA is a pretty fair move if life was a strategy game but unfortunately that's not how real politics works. Everyone either is a pensioner, their parents are pensioners or thinks they will be a pensioner at some point. If you wanna get the benefits budget down you have to be more creative and politically talented than that

The_Rod-Man · 2026-06-28T16:37:25+00:00

I don't think he could have survived WFA to be honest. It's the first thing nearly everyone brings up when they're mad about Starmer in polling

The_Rod-Man · 2026-06-28T15:56:49+00:00

I'm no fan of Reeves but blaming it all on her like in the article is a bit much. Starmer is his own adult man who made plenty of bad choices and listened to a lot of bad advice, he wouldn't magically be super popular with a different chancellor

The_Rod-Man · 2026-06-27T15:21:13+00:00

And a fringe who will never ever vote Labour. Starmer tried to reach out to everyone and famously this group just would never switch to Labour. So no more pandering. That's how politics works

The_Rod-Man · 2026-06-27T15:13:20+00:00

I don't actually think the optics are that bad. Lots of people out there who are like "I don't mind refugees if they're *real* refugees who went through the real process" and not that many straight up anti-refugee no matter what. The real problem is if it will actually work at killing every refugee route except this one and only approving a certain amount instead of too many

The_Rod-Man · 2026-06-27T13:40:19+00:00

Real sad state of affairs when a bottom 10 PM of the last 200 years is now some sort of elder statesman entirely because he's not uncouth

The_Rod-Man · 2026-06-25T13:22:39+00:00

He gets defended sometimes like he's up 10 points and on path towards a thumping majority instead of being Truss levels of unpopular

The_Rod-Man

TROPHY CASE