Keir Starmer's a total disaster - but no sane person wants back-stabbing Burnham either
Starmer's a goner but what comes next is the stuff of nightmares.
While it is true Keir Starmer owns the mess he and the country finds itself in, a new problem has just pulled into town.
Andy Burnham - the self-proclaimed King of the North - is a man so desperate to plunge the knife he could barely contain his excitement when he arived in London on the 8:15 from Manchester.
The Liverpool-born, Everton supporting mayor of Greater Manchester - not a sitting MP - could soon be prime minister.
And he would be well suited, given he’s used to failure.
And if you think he’s the answer to the country’s many problems, consider this:
After the party's crushing 2010 election defeat, he stood for the leadership but finished fourth behind eventual winner Ed Miliband, his brother David and Ed Balls. He did, however, manage to finish ahead of Diane Abbott.
His only positive is that he is untainted by the unrivalled present shambles and that of the past two years.
That makes him an obvious choice, but he first needs to become an MP - thereby deserting the Mancunians he claims to want to champion.
Should he assume the crown, likely alongside his noisy northern neighbour Angela Rayner, they would jolt the country to the loony left once again.
The salutary lesson from the nightmare of the past two years is that you can never trust a politician, not least a Labour one.
When re-elected as mayor in 2024 Burnham vowed: "I'm here for a full third term. I'm not planning to head back to Westminster any time soon."
Really?
Last year, on the eve of the Labour Party conference, he claimed he was being urged to stand for the leadership in a staggering display of arrogance. He was quickly put back in his box.
But since February, when he was barred from standing as a candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election, Burnham’s been seething, sulking, and itching for revenge. He is so desperate it is painful to watch.
The radical left Greens won in south Manchester - the party’s first ever by-election victory - pushing Labour into third place.
Starmer banned Burnham, the one candidate who might have won it, fearing a leadership challenge should he return to parliament.
Given the events of the past 48 hours it says everything about Starmer’s political nous.
Burnham - who was largely a nonentity as culture secretary and health secretary - has tried to reinvent himself as a warm man of the people.
But like the rest of Labour's political pygmies vying for Starmer's job, he presents a very real danger to Britain and its barely functioning economy and is likely to embark on a tax and spend frenzy and radical renationalisation programme as he inflicts what he calls “aspirational socialism” upon a country reeling from its brief and failed romance with this lunatic government.
Burnham represents classic old school Labour.
And that means ripping up fiscal rules in order to embark on a public spending spree; it means ramping up taxes; and it means rolling out a raft of new workers' rights at the expense of employers.
The truth is that Labour is drunk on power, addicted to spending, and blind to the consequences.
It sees no wrong in borrowing more while debt interest balloons as taxpayers’ money gurgles down the plughole.
Instead of spending on the priorities of cutting the deficit, slashing taxes and bolstering national security, Labour under Burnham would turn swivel-eyed once more as it lavishes cash on its ideological obsessions like welfare handouts.
It’s a radical socialist agenda. And it would be a recipe for disaster.
Hasn’t Britain suffered enough already?
