Keir Starmer v Andy Burnham: this is the best way for Labour to prove they're not like the Tories
A week, the saying goes, is a long time in politics. In today’s febrile, social media-charged world of politics, a world in which the United Kingdom is headed for its seventh Prime Minister inside a decade, plenty can happen during the course of a weekend, too.
As this newspaper went to press on Friday, Sir Keir Starmer and his phalanx of Number 10 communications staff were frantically pushing the line that this Prime Minister would be going nowhere.
Today, the so-called King of the North, Andy Burnham – the now MP for Makerfield – arrives to the Westminster pitch rolled flat towards Downing Street by the Business Secretary, Peter Kyle, who yesterday told journalists that the Prime Minister was ‘reflecting on political realities’.
The shift in tone, as much as the frankness of the content from the Business Secretary, is as telling now as the broadside from Defence Secretary, John Healey, was upon his resignation from Keir Starmer’s cabinet: faith in the mettle and intent of the Prime Minister’s leadership is lost, and, now, senior members of Government such as Peter Kyle are not afraid to say as much on live television.
Sir Keir has repeatedly stated that he and his party are different to their predecessors. The cohort of Tories who made up the dying days of the last Conservative Government fought themselves like rats in a sack until the bitter end. It was an unedifying spectacle and one that has tarnished the reputation of the once great Conservative Party immeasurably.
The best way, therefore, for this Labour Government to demonstrate its point of difference is for the transfer of power to take place with alacrity, clarity and without fuss and blunder.