Will Sir Keir do the decent thing and resign ?
I think he’s a decent man with all the right values but, I think he now needs to confront reality and save the country the hassle of a leadership battle where there is only one winner.
Whether Andy will do any better is a different matter of course…..
Hopefully anything must be better than a Farage government ?
With luck yes
I suspect Sir Kier would make an excellent civil service permanent secretary as he was a DPP but he lacks both a vision and ability to articulate.
Many of the measures in the uk are actually improving but the communication of it is not there and there is a lack of inspiration
It reads as though he will resign and am I am divided on that. Part of me feels it’s more to do with the age we’re living in than any punishable fault but then the age we’re living IS part of the job. Starmer is not a great communicator, he’s not overly charismatic and these are character traits that are considered important in the modern era, particularly in a leader. He’s not inspirational but he undoubtedly has skills that make him a great asset for the UK.
I’m hoping that his resignation, rather than a defeat in a leadership battle, will enable him to spend less time away and that he’ll return in some capacity in the near future. He just has too much knowledge and has built too many functioning relationships to be let go to pasture.
O know quite a few people who worked directly with him as DPP, and they all were impressed with his integrity and abilities. Sadly his skills do not include leading a political party - for which I am sad.
I remember when the “decent thing” featured a large glass of port and a Webley.
I’m please we’ve moved on from those days.
It would be good if this would be resolved quickly with a minimum of partisan division, and particularly the taking of the governments eye from the balls in international play while a contest is fought. The last thing we need is a government rendered ineffective by leadership contests.
He is, without doubt, a man of great ability and integrity. But when he became Prime Minister, I felt he was not the man for the job. His forté is in playing a supporting role, a great team player and potentially a first-rate 2IC, but not a man for the leadership role.
Another question.
Who was the real loser at Makerfield , Sir Keir or Nige ?
I would suggest neither and propose Wes Streeting.
Streeting has shot himself in both feet!
I agree and if Burnham becomes PM, I wouldn’t give Streeting a cabinet job or any other job. In my opinion he can’t be trusted and will cause trouble wherever he can.
He done well within the Dept of Health apparently, reducing waiting times etc
He got the job at least partly because, after the wild goose-chasing of Tory leadership, Labour needed a ‘grey man’ who looked ordinary, slightly dull, and would be a safe pair of hands. KS was the Arthur Putey look-alike they chose, and he fitted the bill well. Unfortunately it appears that the country really wanted something else, and the team he picked did not help, especially Rachel R.
He did but he wants the top job and I don’t think he’ll be happy with anything less, I suspect he’s influenced by Blair, I’ve no evidence I can produce, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
I’d go so far as to say that the country doesn’t actually know what it wants other than “not this” with this being the leader at any point in time.
Zero accountability for politicians isn’t really doing the populace any favours.
I’m all for accountability. I was meaning it’s good that we’ve moved on from drastic solutions like the Webley/port one.
Bizarrely 
face called upon people to vote for Reform to get rid of Starmer. But actually he got his outcome by people rejecting Reform.
He “got the job” as has been said because he transformed Labour from an unelectable mess under Corbyn into a party that could actually fight a general election and win, and form a government afterwards.
OK, he had a massive following wind of anti-Tory sentiment and it is a sad indictment of UK politics that gaining the support of only a shade over 20% of the electorate (20.1% of registered voters or 33.7% of votes cast in a 59.7% turnout) brought him to N° 10 but he was leader of the party at the time so can reasonably claim that mandate; Burnham can reasonably claim a mandate from slightly over 24k people in Makerfield.
This will not help Labour, it is somewhat unlikely that Burnham will do much different to Starmer. He’s talked about renationalising water (which I think is inevitable for Thames Water anyway) and hinted about bringing more rail operators under public control but he has also hinted that he will stick to Reeves’ “fiscal rules” and the manifesto promise to not raise income tax or NI so finding the money might be a challenge. He has also said that he will not seek to rejoin the EU although this is a bit like saying you are not going to seek to lengthen the day to 26 hours so people have more leisure time - it’s not happening whether you want it to or not (so you might as well publicly support “not” so as to not look like a chump).
I wish the bloke well, I would concede that of the present shower he is at least someone who might be able to have a stab at the job but his previous ministerial career was not stellar. Perhaps running a large municipality for nine years has sharpened his skills - one can hope so - but I can’t help thinking that short termism and personality politices (of which this is another example) has not worked for the UK and is not about to start doing so.
Mmm that is starting to feel very French.
I do remember when politicians could just be politicians , now they have to be all singing, all dancing entertainers.
Obviously a bit of charisma doesn’t go amiss and sadly Keir, an intelligent man who really does seem to care about others, is lacking in this respect.
Burnham does appear to be more charismatic and certainly more so than Badenoch, who has all the charisma of a slug and Farage , who is a slug.