Burnham claims he is ‘completely committed’ to his Greater Manchester mayoral job
Q: What would you do if an MP offered to make a parliamentary seat available to you?
Burnham said he would not answer a hypothetical question.
He went back to his point about wanting to see a plan for the government, and about that mattering more than personalities.
Q: But if Keir Starmer read your comments, he would feel miffed. He would think you were undermining him. What do you say to that?
Burnham said he would say only a few days ago he was working “hard behind the scenes to land the Hillsborough law”, to get the plans in a form that would be acceptable to the families.
He said people do not feel the government is on their side.
That is what the party needs to do, “before you talk about any personality”.
Q: What would you say to people in Manchester who say you are not focused on the city any more?
Burnham said he would say he is here.
I would say to [callers to the programme] I’m here because I’m focused on here, and I’m about to take all of your calls, as I did last week.
And I am working, as I’ve always done, in dealing with the issues that affect people here. And I think that commitment I make to this programme is proof of that.
And I love everything about this job. I love what’s happening here in Greater Manchester. I’m completely committed to it.
Key events
Blair’s thinktank says digital ID could be ‘one of most important steps taken by any government to make lives easier’
Tony Blair has been pushing ID cards for 20 years. One he was prime minister, his government passed legislation for a voluntary ID card scheme shortly before he stood down. But the scheme was only just being implemented when the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition took office, and they scrapped it with glee.
In recent years Blair’s thinktank, the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) has been arguing for a digital version.
Responding to reports that Keir Starmer is about to announced that he is going ahead with this idea (see 4.14pm), Alexander Iosad, the TBI’s director of government innovation, said:
Make no mistake, if the government announces a universal digital ID to help improve our public services, it would be one of the most important steps taken by this or any government to make British citizens’ everyday lives easier and build trust.
How we experience government could be about to transform, for the better. Not only can digital ID help us to tackle illegal migration, but done correctly and responsibly, it can open the door to a whole new model of services that come to you when you need them.
Our polling released just days ago shows that not only do 62% of Brits spanning the whole spectrum of politics want digital ID, but that they want it to do more than just prove who they are. Digital ID can and should be a gateway to government services whether that’s reporting potholes or even voting.
Starmer expected to announce plans for digital ID cards
Keir Starmer is expected to set out plans for every adult to have digital ID cards in an attempt to tackle illegal migration to the UK, Rowena Mason reports.
Former Daily Mirror editor Alison Phillips appointed chief executive of Labour Together
Alison Phillips, a former editor of the Daily Mirror, has been appointed as chief executive of Labour Together, the thinktank once run by Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney.
She will replace the former Labour MP Jonathan Ashworth, who has been in the job since he lost his seat at the general election.
Phillips said:
Labour Together is a hugely important organisation, serving the party in its work to make ordinary people’s lives better. I am extremely proud to join this incredible team as we enter a new phase in Labour Together’s history. And to play my part in ensuring Labour continues to make the change people are seeking across the UK.
Working at the Daily Mirror constantly reminded me of the decency, resilience and compassion that lies within the vast majority of British people – it is these people, their concerns and hopes which will be at the centre of our thinking at Labour Together.
Labour Together is at the centre of a controversy generated by the publication of new evidence relating to the thinktank’s failure to declare donations worth £740,000 that were received before 2021. Peter Walker has an explainer here.
Another Labour MP has been on social media having a go at Andy Burnham. This is from Oliver Ryan, MP for Burnley.
I see Andy Burnham’s prospects are all over the news again, he’ll hate that…
Starmer’s head of communications Steph Driver quits in latest No 10 exit
Keir Starmer’s head of communications, Steph Driver, has announced she is leaving Downing Street, the latest in a series of trusted aides to the prime minister who have quit No 10 in recent months, Pippa Crerar reports.
Labour would regain lead over Reform UK with Burnham as leader, poll suggests
Labour would regain its lead over Reform UK with Andy Burnham as leader, a poll suggests. More in Common carried out the polling, first published in the New Statesman’s Morning Call newsletter.
Commenting on the poll, Luke Tryl, More in Common’s UK director, says:
All usual caveats about hypothetical polling; king across the water syndrome and as the launch (?) of your party shows things don’t always go the way hypothetical polling might assume. Instead I think real take away is less about leaders and that there are gettable Labour votes
Looking at voter flows confirms that biggest chunk is winning back voters who currently say they don’t know, likely disappointed left, along with some Lib Dem and Tory switchers. Reform vote changes very little however with a change of leader.
This chart illustrates Tryl’s point about voter flows.
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has argued that it would be a misake to write off Keir Starmer’s chances of electoral recovery. Asked about the apparent challenge to his leadership from Andy Burnham, she told Sky News:
We have seen this film a few times before. When Keir ran for the leadership, people said that Labour couldn’t come back from the catastrophic defeat at the 2019 election, then people said he couldn’t overturn that huge Conservative majority.
He won a landslide victory just over a year ago, and Keir and the whole government are focusing on the change that the country voted for …
In the same way that this government are delivering change, I know that Andy is focused on delivering change in Greater Manchester.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar says Starmer’s government has been poor at communicating its successes
Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, has criticised Keir Starmer’s government for not properly promoting its successes.
Speaking to journalists in Scotland, Sarwar was also lukewarm in his support for the prime minister, refusing to engage in a question about whether he had full confidence in him.
Speaking about Starmer, Sarwar said:
[Starmer] has got a really difficult job, we have made significant progress in the last year.
If I’ve got one single biggest criticism of a UK Labour government, it is there have been huge successes, but very few people have been told about them or know about them.
Asked if he had full confidence in Starmer, Sarwar replied:
I think to be even talking in those terms is frankly ridiculous. This is a prime minister who won a historic victory, removed the Tories from office, won a huge landslide, and now he has to get on with the day job.
Sarwar said it was John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, who needed to be removed from his job in the Scottish parliamentary elections next May.
Asked if Starmer was the right person to be prime minister when that election takes place, Sarwar avoided the question, saying:
I think John Swinney is the worst person to be in Bute House and we need someone new in Bute House and that will come at the election in May.
Asked again if Starmer was the right person to be PM, Sarwar replied:
He is the prime minister doing a really important job and he’s got to continue to do that job to improve the country.
Crown court backlog in England and Wales hits new record of almost 80,000 cases
The crown court backlog in England and Wales has risen by 10% to a new record of almost 80,000 cases, while wait times for trial dates have reached up to four years, Matthew Weaver reports.
Fire Brigades Union says it is backing Powell for deputy Labour leader to show ‘leadership must change direction’
The Fire Brigades Union has announced it has endorsed Lucy Powell for deputy Labour leader. Steve Wright, the FBU’s general secretary, said:
Austerity and authoritarianism are a road to nowhere but misery for working people. If Labour does not deliver the change it promised, this will be a one term government.
The FBU supports Lucy Powell’s call to scrap the two-child benefit cap, as well as her support for the full delivery of the employment rights bill. We urge her, and all Labour MPs, to go further – to end austerity and introduce a wealth tax.
That’s why our union is backing Lucy Powell as deputy leader – to send a clear message that the leadership must change direction.
Unite says it won’t endorse candidate for deputy Labour leader because Phillipson and Powell offering ‘more of same’
Unite, the most leftwing of the major unions affiliated to Labour, has said that it is not going to endorse either Bridget Phillipson or Lucy Powell for deputy leader.
It says it will “not support the status quo or someone who has openly attacked Unite members during the Birmingham bin dispute”.
That is a reference to Phillipson being the “status quo” candidate in that she is still in cabinet as education secretary, and Powell criticising Unite when responding to a question about the bin strike during her time as leader of the Commons. (“I have no problem in saying that the trade union Unite needs to step up, get back round the table and come to an agreement,” Powell said in April.)
Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary, said:
Britain needs change, not more of the same. Workers are leaving labour in droves and tinkering will not stem the tide. Unfortunately, this election does not offer the alternative that Britain needs. For everyday people, it is irrelevant.
Labour must deliver real change. We need huge investment into our crumbling infrastructure and our public services, a pay rise for British workers and end to the private profiteering that helps drive inflation.
This decision will not stop Unite members having the chance to vote in the election. But, if their feelings match those of the union’s leadership, many of them may decide not to bother filling in the ballot paper.
Labour MP claims it’s ‘fanciful’ to think Burnham would definitely get nominations needed to launch leadership bid
In his Telegraph story about his Andy Burnham interview, Tony Diver quotes some anonymous government/Labour sources criticising him. One “government source” said:
Some politicians like governing and some would prefer to give interviews, and this all feels a bit desperate to be quite honest. I hope [Burnham] will either come up with credible ideas or manage to regain his interest in his current job as mayor of Manchester.
And one “former colleague” told Diver: “[Burnham] doesn’t like doing the difficult stuff. Keir [Starmer] can be ruthless, but not Andy.”
Since then some of Burnham’s criticis have gone public. This morning the Labour MP Neil Coyle posted this on social media, commenting on a tweet with a headline saying some MPs were urging Burnham to run for leader.
Not me. The annual ‘Burnham wants to be leader’ headlines just before conference are more grating this year. He didn’t take on the guy who oversaw Labour’s worst defeat in a century & facilitated antisemitism, but pops up now under a huge majority & with 4 years to go?! No ta.
In an interview with the World at One, Coyle went further. He said:
Every year we get this nonsense that Andy wants to be PM and doesn’t want to be mayor of Manchester. I think if I was a voter, I’d be sick to the back teeth of hearing he doesn’t want to be the leader of my city, he wants a different job.
Instead of working with the Labour government, he looks like he’s part of the sideshow, distractions, that upset a lot of our members.
He’s harking back to a time when maybe he did have more support in the parliamentary Labour party in the Corbyn years when there were so few of us.
The idea that Andy Burnham’s got 80 [Labour MPs] ready and waiting to sign up to a leadership bid were he able to even find a seat and get back into Westminster … it’s all a bit fanciful.
Coyle is referring to the number of nominations Burnham would need to stand for leader, assuming he were able to return to parliament by finding a vacant parliamentary seat, winning the selection and winning the byelection.
Sam Coates from Sky News says there has been a change in thinking about how to respond to the Burnham challenge in Labour leadership circles.
Seems like there’s been a big switch in gvt approach to Burnham
Last night / at 6am it appeared to be don’t acknowledge, don’t engage, just mock or belittle
Now its tasers to fire, engage on the subject / substance and ministers go for the man himself
Quite why they didn’t get there quicker…
My colleague Pippa Crerar has an example of how the anti-Burnham briefing is ramping up here. She is referring to a Burnham quote in the Tom McTague interview in the New Statesman.
“We’ve got to get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets,” Andy Burnham told @TomMcTague.
These remarks causing real annoyance inside government.
“What does that even mean? Pay off the debts we owe them quicker by spending less on public services or ignoring them entirely?” one says.
Starmer allies suggest Burnham’s plans are irresponsible and could risk a Liz Truss style bond market meltdown if he ever got to put them in place.
Two Labour councillors in Stockport, Joe Barratt and his mother, Rosemary Barratt, have left the party and are now sitting as independents, the Manchester Evening News reports. In a statement explaining his decision, Joe Barratt says Keir Starmer is not providing the right leadership. He says:
I do not believe that the current leadership fully grasps the scale of change needed to reverse the decline of our country – what Andy Burnham has rightly described as the “complete rewiring of Britain.
Labour should be looking to figures like him, who have delivered tangible change at local and regional level, if it is to restore the trust and faith in the party, and in politics, that has been so badly lost at a national level.
