Burnham Breaks Cover
In a clear bit of positioning, Andy Burnham has just gone public with his criticism of a Liberal Democrat and Labour deal: “I think we have got to respect the results of the general election and we can’t get away from the fact that Labour didn’t win.”
Via Paul Waugh we learn that he was a lot more candid at the Cabinet meeting last night. He apparently “raised concern about the backlash coming from the electorate over this situation… He said it could be perceived as bad for democracy if we are not listening to what the public have very clearly said.” The money is moving on Burnham, he could gain some traction as a unity figure…
The Lib Dems are proving true to form.
Unable to make their mind up other than to sell to the highest bidder.
Whether Labour or Tory I wouldn’t trust them now.
Clegg will be in the wilderness if he doesn’t make a decision fast
Never even considered Andy Burnham as a Labour leader. At first thought it seems a very good move. He is a reasonable, likable and able chap.
Where have you been? North Staffordshire NHS Trust ring any bells?
You beat me to it Engineer. Staffs General is not far over the county border from me and the local disgust, not only at the awful events but also how Burnham has deliberately thrown a very thick blanket over it all, stinks to high heaven.
Just his behaviour is covering up the disgraceful number of deaths in a hospital makes him ideal to be a Liebore leader.
I’ve dealt with him for a charity when he was in the health dept. Seemed like a really nice guy. He reminds me of a younger Johnson. Wondered if he was too lite weight though.
” reasonable, likable and able”
Would those qualities not disqualify him from the job of leading Labour?
He’s reasonable and likeable?
Absolutely the wrong credentials for a Labour leader.
don’t get carried away with Burnham
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/andy_burnham/leigh
If they align themselves with Labour they’ll be finished in England for a generation – if they go with Tory they’ll be finished forever in Scotland.
No loss there then.
Pull up the anchor chains and let Jockland drift into the Arctic sea,
Clegg will be in the wilderness if he makes a decision fast as well
His party is clearly divided
Rug eaters make notorously bad bed fellows…
Crikey, Burnham? Mister toe-the-line? Amazed. Good for him.
For fucks sake Guido, Andy Burnham is a Conservative.
Everyone knows that.
Note to Andy: piss off to the Conservative benches if you feel so strong about it.
You see that is the problem with the Labour party: it has far too many self serving twats like Andy Burnham in it.
Too right. It’s difficult to make any headway at all in the Labour party. I keep tripping over self-serving twats at every turn.
others too “Schools Minister Diana Johnson” – never heard of her – speaking on the green, “What I think, at the moment, is that the numbers for a Liberal-Labour coalition government just don’t stack up. We’ve got 258 seats, and I don’t think with the Lib Dems and a variety of other people in parliament, that we could form a stable government” No shit. I guess she got the schools post ‘cus she can add half a dozen numbers.
Is it coming apart? I hope to god it is…
What’s Mandy’s Plan B? Simply give up, consolidate his puppets’ positions within labour, hold fire till the next election?
A government is as stable as its policy Frank.
If stable policy were to be derailed by the Conservatives for partisan gain then it is the Conservative party that will be blamed and therefore the Conservative party that would pay the price in the next election.
Earth to “The Hatred of the Tories is the Glue of the Coalition” – are you reading us?
You may not have added up the various party’s tally of seats – may I respectfully suggest that you do?
May I also point out that the electorate decided that it wasn’t really all that keen on Labour’s policies, and even less keen on the LibDem ones?
258 + 55 + 30 others = a clear majority over the Tory party.
The Hatred of the Tories is the Glue of the Coalition.
pretty un-democratic…..sorry so is the labourious party, oh and the LabDems
You forget that some LibDems hate Labour even more than they hate Tories, and the Irish parties don’t all align with Labour either. The Scot Nats have pretty much ruled it out, too.
Face facts, it won’t add up. Even if by some amazing chance it did get close, how the hell are the Labour whips going to control and assortment like that? Like herding cats…
Undemocratic?
A LabLib coalition represents 15 million voters and the Conservatives only won 10 million votes.
It is therefore and entirely democratic arrangement.
You stupid dim Tory.
There is an anti-Labour majority.
There is an anti-LibDem majority.
There is a Con+LibDem majority.
“258 + 55 + 30 others = a clear majority over the Tory party.”
What fucking 30 others? Are you counting fat birds twice? Gordon doesn’t have the numbers – to geat a real practical working majority over tories and unionists he would need Sinn Fein too. If he were to bring those arseholes into government, to reverse a legitimate election defeat, I don’t think Labour could win an English seat ever again.
If the unionists or snp vote against the cash tap will be turned off.
Let them beg the EU for money.
always looking on the negative side – fuck of gordon
Mandy’s Plan B is to join Goldman Sachs (or Waddesdon Manor, Morgan Stanly etc), travel around the world first class on a £1 million per year salary plus bonuses (offshore of course) and spend his time with upmarket rentboys and ducheses and the “filthy rich”
Laughing all the way to the bank like the Grinning Fraudulent Ape Blair…
He probably telephones his chums to give them insider information on when to short sterming, gitrls etc while he is in his official car …
He does not give a shit…
Burnham is the first, but others will follow. The wiser heads in the Labour party know that the numbers are against them, and that they will be slaughtered for even trying it in the inevitable early election.
This leaves Mandelweasel, Balls, Campbell and Co. looking very, very sleazy; the bulk of the PLP may well turn on them. Hope it’s really bloody….
The wiser heads in the Conservative party know that they have blown the chance to form a government.
Face facts Engineer, the Tories ran a rubbish campaign and then failed in negotiations to form a coaliton government because they thougth they were above such trivialities.
And now, just like the failure Gordon Brown, you wish to discuss the oppositions position rather than the mess your own party is in.
Desperate stuff Engineer.
Incredibly desperate.
Who says the Conservatives have failed? Talks with the LibDems have not been abandoned, but it seems that talks with Labour have – for now, if not permanently.
Yeah of course.
Somehow, with their disasterous campaign (and I agree it was bloody awful) they manged to poll some 2 million more votes than the clunking fisting Labour party.
The people (such as they are) have collectively and decisively REJECTED Labour.
Why do the lefty numb-nuts not understand this simple conclusion?
There are 20-30 Labout MPs who would regularly vote against a Lib Lab Coalition
That means Lib Lab coalition is fucked before it starts…
Simple…
***** BREAKING NEWS ********
As a stream of Labour MPs come out of the shadows to oppose a Lib Lab deal, Gordon Brown’s Cabinet unity starts to disintegrate: Andy Burnham and Diana Johnson openly question viability of a coalition of loosers.
The more I think about this, the more I become convinced that this was a ddeliberate ploy by Mandleson and Campbell (both unelected) to force the Lib Dems to make a shaky deal with the Conservatives.
They are gambling that such a deal will give them the space to dump Brown, install a new leader and get another election on May 7th 2011, after the Conservatives and Lib Dems have made unpopular decsions, making their re-election more likely.
Diane Johnson is an idiot. Who gives a fuck what she says the money grubbing whore.
Who would have thought it – Gordon’s suicide bomb being defused by his own party.
ROFL!
..only credible if you really believe that the voters will have forgotten who got us into this mess in the first place.
The con/libdems will be able to crow about this for three years before it starts to sound like a stuck record.
Only 3? Try adding a nought on that.
But Labour has nobody to lead. NOBODY.
Their policies are shyte. Authoritarianism and Big State.
How are they going to sell that outside of the Labour-voting donkey core vote?
Jack Strawman was also against the Lib Lab coalition during the Cabinet meeting
BTW cabinet secrecy seems to have been destroyed by Nu Labour along with everything else they have touched…
Pound is rallying amidst expectations of a LibCon deal …
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/may/11/market-turmoil-europe-debt-crisis-election-live-blog
Call another General Election fast Cameron.
The socialists have no money left in their coffers. Bankcrupt them once and for all. The only language they understand.
Time for some fun in this mess.
David Cameron is not Prime Minister and therefore has no right to call an election.
You stupid Tory.
We don’t have a PM, the last one lost and has posted his intention to quit.
You stupid socialist
We do have a Prime Minister and his name is Gordon Brown.
The Tories failed to gain a majority and therefore the failure is still in place.
If you do not like the British Constitution perhaps you should piss off to China.
You deluded Conservative scum.
Presidents without election, more of a labour idea. Deluded moron
That is where Alan Johnson steps in. He is a very collegiate fellow who would re-introduce collective cabinet decision making and collective cabinet responsibility to the British Constitution. He is also willing to offer at least six cabinet seats to the Liberal Democrats.
Alan Johnson is the missing piece of the jigsaw: he is English, affable and a unifying force.
Cometh the hour cometh the man.
Alan Johnson is the man for the job.
My my, the voice of reason has spoken.. so wonderfully inept and void of reason! Charlie Whelan?
If that is the best you Tories can come up with as an argument then you do not deserve to be in power.
Ever since Thatcher was assassinated by her party the Tories have been weak.
Weak Tory government is not stable governement.
The hatred of eachother by the “progressives” is why the Coalition will never take place !!
If David were to take his rightful places he’d have been elected into it. The stupid socialists don’t like to have leaders chosen by the electorate, prefering to install their own soviet style dictatorship. Hunts
From Cameron’s point of view, there would be a lot to be said for Lib/Lab/SNP/SDLP/Plaid Cymru/Green/Uncle Tom Cobbly and all coalition – it wouldn’t take long to self-destruct leaving the doors of Downing Street wide open for him to step in.
The only downside would be the economy would go down the toilet.
what further than Brown has flushed it now? the Head in the sand tribal labour voters would have you believe the spin but the truth is there for all to see.
Whenever Labour is in power – Things can always get worse!
Hey well if we’ve started playing silly games with names like that why not consider John Prescott, Peter Mandelson, Stephen Byers, Geoff Hoon etc?
hands up who thinks Ashdown is still a spook?
He’s not one of ours
Did I say that?
He eats too many rugs to work for MI5…
Mmm! Can I have his phone number? Canterbury is a bit far when you need to get your lady lawn trimmed.
Yes is is – and he’s not the only one.
We will never know for sure however as all the files have been shredded.
he’s not a spook he just can’t remember which planet he’s on – he’s more of a zorg
I’ve just emailed the conservative way forward lot and told them to shut the f up!
I hope someone is recording who said what during this time.
It’s clear that some labour MPs who I might profoundly disagree with have behaved honourably during this time, and others… not so much.
Whatever comes out of this, it should matter!
Reid and Blunkett have shown some integrity and before this scheme started to fall apart.
For fuck sake. We’ve manipulated the voting system to give us a 10% advantage. We’ve let in millions of immigrants. We’ve dished out benefits to anybody who asked fro them. We’ve stuffed the civil service with nonjobs.
And we still lost nearly a hundred seats. What’s going on?
But the fatal flaw in the plan was that they allowed an arsehole to become PM.
Could you please direct me to the A1? I need to go north, quickly.
Very quickly…
Burnham is right of course. It would be a betrayal of the electorate. Burnham is enhancing is reputation. The Brownites are history and by this recent attempt to thwart the wishes of the electorate have exposed themselves as people who do not put the needs of the country first.
The Brownites are not history at all
Brown is already a very bitter, twisted man, he will never forgive Mandelson for brining off the Coup against him (which he has still not really understood in his cloud cucko land !!)
Blinky if going to rip the guts of the Labour party in the leaders fight this summer
You wait and watch my words…
Even if he loses, he will split the Party and get the unions to blackmail the child Milliband or whoever wins…
Burnham and the few remaining senior Blairites will have the “forces of hell” leashed on them
We will probably have compromising photos of senior Blairites in the gutter press as well
Could be fun….
Anyone seen Jack F Straw?