[Youngian]

Fun fact; Burnham's missus was a Blind Date contestant where she appeared to have picked Sasha Baron-Cohen as Bruno. The bloke did become marketing director of the Conservative Party so lucky escape there for Marie-France Van Heel. Or Frankie as Andy likes to call her because he's just an ordinary bloke.

[Andy McDandy]

Guessing he was seat 3 - the whacky one.

Blind Date contestant order:

Men - Smoothie, Hunk, Whacky

Women - Ladette, Princess, Hippy

[Killer Whale]

I see the Indie is describing her as the potential 'first lady', FFS.

Seriously.

FFS.

[Yug]

Not Camilla Parker-Knoll then? I woulda thunk that being married to the king, and having the official title of Queen, might be a slight hint that, in the archaic social hierarchy, she outranks everyone except her husband.

But what do I kno? I'm only a common pleb, not some feersumly clever journalist with a degree in medieval French pre-marital arc-welding from Luton Tech.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

But what do I kno? I'm only a common pleb, not some feersumly clever journalist with a degree in medieval French pre-marital arc-welding from Luton Tech.

[Bones McCoy]

Some manic pixie energy there, without going full Claire Grogan.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Before coffee...

[Tubby Isaacs]

I see the Guardian has discovered that James Purnell has recently worked for a firm who had clients.

I foresee about two weeks before the old two-step of 1) columnist comes up with a brain fart policy and 2) The government not doing the policy is put down to Purnell having once had a client who might have been affected.

This stuff always looks live clever investigative journalism, but in reality anyone can write this stuff. Governments are naturally wary of alienating investors. You don’t have to infer any more than that.

[mattomac]

I wonder if the appointment of Purnell was one he would have done in 2010, you know when he wasn't even considered.

Has Staffs NHS trust been mentioned yet?

[Boiler]

Give it time...

[kreuzberger]

Has Staffs NHS trust been mentioned yet?

They are wise to keep their counsel. The period covered by the enquiry in to the NHS omnihorror in Nottinghamshire is bookended by tory rule.

Every last failure of culture, people and process happened on their watch.

[Andy McDandy]

Fenton's fuckwit brought it up on that there blog.

[Boiler]

You sure about that, Andy? The writing style doesn't seem the same (and now having been there, I will have to go and wave a blowlamp over my laptop to sanitise it).

[Tubby Isaacs]

Another one for the hot dog man meme. Doesn't Jonathan Liew have enough work on with the World Cup? Why is he even writing about politics?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... wing-press

"Britain has become addicted", said paper that has metaphorically stood on street corners flogging the drug.

[davidjay]

...while at the same time calling for a crackdown on dealers.

[Abernathy]

You know, I still don't really understand how it is that Burnham was prevented by the NEC from standing in the Gorton & Denton parliamentary by-election on the entirely valid grounds that an un-necessary by-election for the Manchester mayoralty risked a Reform mayor of Manchester and would cost the party a fortune to fight, yet mere weeks later, was green-lighted by the same NEC to stand in an artificially created (by Josh Simon) by-election in Makerfield , when exactly the same concerns about triggering an un-necessary Manchester mayoral by-election still apply.

What changed ?

Similarly, why did Keir Starmer spend days insisting that he would fight any challenge to his leadership, then cave in and accede to demands for "an orderly transition" ? I suspect the motivation here was just "Fuck it.", but I'm not sure. Vic Starmer's view was probably very influential.

Can't shake the feeling that what we have seen is an out-and-out political coup.

[Youngian]

No point in carrying on if you've lost the confidence of your parliamentary party and cabinet. Unless you're a fucking idiot like Corbyn.
And why has Burnham, after banging on about 40 years of failure of neoliberalism, appointed arch Blairite James Purnell as his chief of staff?

[Watchman]

The thought occurs; how many other backbench MP’s have a chief of staff

[Yug]

why has Burnham, after banging on about 40 years of failure of neoliberalism, appointed arch Blairite James Purnell as his chief of staff?

Burnham appears to be something of a populist, and I've come to believe that one thing you can't expect from populists is consistency .

[Tubby Isaacs]

You know, I still don't really understand how it is that Burnham was prevented by the NEC from standing in the Gorton & Denton parliamentary by-election on the entirely valid grounds that an un-necessary by-election for the Manchester mayoralty risked a Reform mayor of Manchester and would cost the party a fortune to fight, yet mere weeks later, was green-lighted by the same NEC to stand in an artificially created (by Josh Simon) by-election in Makerfield , when exactly the same concerns about triggering an un-necessary Manchester mayoral by-election still apply.

What changed ?

Similarly, why did Keir Starmer spend days insisting that he would fight any challenge to his leadership, then cave in and accede to demands for "an orderly transition" ? I suspect the motivation here was just "Fuck it.", but I'm not sure. Vic Starmer's view was probably very influential.

Can't shake the feeling that what we have seen is an out-and-out political coup.

He had 100 MPs calling for him to go. When you've got that number of goons, it's hard to carry on because there'll always be something they can alight upon as a "betrayal` or whatever. You can bust your arse to save jobs at UK exporters and get it in the neck for "sucking up to Trump". You can try and stop people dying in the NHS because the records are appalling, and the reaction is that you've "handed over our data to corporations". Betrayal, both.

If you're going down anyway, you might as well go down to someone you think is electable, and Burnham at least now, seems to be electable. So he let him stand.