Hey UK folks, what your take on Andy Burnham, the man presumably taking over the reins of UK Labour, and Number 10, from Sir Stammer? Do you think this will this improve Labour's prospects in future elections?
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I will never understand how Labour manages to continue to fuck up. 10 years of ridiculous Tory clown show, and Labour couldn't even manage a decent opposition. Determined to be Tory-light, apparently.
I've felt for a long time that English voters should replace the Tories with the LibDems and Labour with the Greens. That would do the country a lot of good.
But I hope Andy Burnham is finally going to be better.
@mcv
> I've felt for a long time that English voters should replace the Tories with the LibDems and Labour with the Greens
Let's face it the Greens *are* the real UK labour party now. It's encouraging that polls and election results are starting to reflect that.
Interesting call on the Liberal Democrats. If the Tories continue to accompany Labour in their slide into irrelevance, and Count Binface embarrasses Farage so completely in Clacton that it tanks Reform, that could even happen.
@strypey He's still a zionist, and appears to be a centrist. He's already made commitments that indicate he's just as establishment as Starmer. The only benefit seems to be that he's not Starmer. He might do some good, but I'm not holding my breath. The Greens look far better to me.
@strypey Not really expecting anything different, just a less robotic delivery of the disappointment. We'll see, but I am not massively hopeful.
@pre
> Not really expecting anything different
Is that just disillusionment with Labour as a party though, or based on Burnham's background as a political operator?
@strypey As far as I can tell the only Road to Damascus type conversion he's had since he was a neoliberal blarite in the Blair government is this thing of "public control with private ownership" he goes on about.
That's 'Manchesterism', where the regulators have more power but the rich still get to own and operate the infrastructure.
His tone is better on Gaza, but carefully phrased to involve no actual action at all.
He's talked about fiscal rules and sticking to budgets rather than fiscal multipliers and investment.
He might build a few more houses, he might regulate the water companies and other private infrastructure better but he won't be doing either such that the state owns them. He wants the rich people to own them still.
He still appears to basically believe that government can't do things because private industry is more efficient.
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@pre
> the only Road to Damascus type conversion he's had since he was a neoliberal blarite in the Blair government is this thing of "public control with private ownership" he goes on about
That's disappointing. But if you wanted to be optimistic, you could see it as Labour shuffling ever so slightly to the left in response to the rise of the Greens, and cross your fingers that it's a small step towards a Labour leader who's actually on the left ; )
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What will be interesting is how the polls go over the next few months, and how the Labour decision-makers read the tea leaves.
If the Greens continue to rise, they *might* accept that they need to abandon the Blairite centre-right altogether to save themselves from electoral oblivion. OR, they might interpret that as Burnham being too far to the left and spooking their "moderate" supporters. One to watch.
