Awkward headlines for Labour yesterday as Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham confessed he still has aspirations to be Labour leader:
“One day, if it became possible, but I’m not sitting here plotting a way to do so. I wouldn’t say never,”
It is of course more than a faint possibility that we will see a leadership tussle between Andy Burnham and Sadiq Khan in the not too distant future. Keen to downplay the story, he’s just told TalkRADIO that while he does, deep down, have ambitions, “I’m not expecting to go back to Westminster. I believe the job I’m in will be the last job I will do in politics. So you know, I’m not plotting any return”. Given the transparent politically coded wording of Burnham’s denial, Guido can’t imagine this will reassure Starmer…
Labour MPs Ian Lavery and Jon Trickett took part in a hard-left Zoom call yesterday which saw both admonish Keir Starmer’s flaccid statement yesterday afternoon, in which the Labour party called for the closure of Zoos while shying away from demanding the closure of schools. Former Labour party chair Lavery – who in November threatened Starmer with a leadership challenge – ranted:
“And what’s happened today? We’ve been waiting on a comment from Keir today and he’s saying we should have a lockdown. In his comments I believe he’s saying we should be closing zoos – what on earth are we talking about?! Closing zoos and not closing schools? Am I missing something here? Am I missing something?… I cannot fathom it out I’m afraid.”
Trickett joined in the damning criticism, saying “there’s no logic to the position where we now are and hopefully wiser heads will prevail quickly. A country without an effective, challenging, demanding opposition leadership is a country in great difficulty”. Guido is amazed to find himself agreeing with the Corbynista MPs. As Guido wrote earlier, Jeremy Hunt is currently doing a better job at scrutiny than the actual Leader of the Opposition…
Ian Lavery has become the first disgruntled hard-left MP to openly float the threat of a leadership challenge to Keir Starmer after his decision to refuse the return of the Labour whip to Corbyn. Speaking to the Huffington Post’s Commons People podcasts, the MP described Sir Keir’s recent leadership style as:
“Not being melodramatic but that’s a bit like a tin-pot dictatorship to me.”
He then went on to point out “there’s always the opportunity for a leadership challenge and the rules allow that to happen. It just depends on how Keir’s leadership develops; I’ve got to say I’m very disappointed in it at this moment in time… he’s caused absolute mayhem in the party.”
The overt threat comes as it emerges Starmer’s decision to withhold the whip from his predecessor is for a renewable period of just three months, with LabourList sources claiming chief whip Nick Brown has informed Corbyn of the time period, and that as there’s not a hard deadline he could actually have the whip restored even sooner. Despite this, Corbyn’s legal team are still expected to mount a challenge over his suspension…
Last night a feature by BBC Newsnight on Sir Keir and his predecessors saw big beasts of the Labour Party blast his slippery here-today-gone-tomorrow principles. Ian Lavery claimed Starmer ran a duplicitous campaign to become leader, saying “anybody who didn’t know who Keir Starmer was would think that we’ve got somebody here who’s probably as left-wing and more devoted to socialism than what Jeremy Corbyn was.” Diane Abbott went further…
The former Shadow Home Secretary says she was “suspicious of him” for scheming during his time in the Shadow Cabinet, saying “he had a project of his own to become leader of the Labour Party… I blame his mother for calling him Keir”; attacking his duplicity behind shifting from second referendum to Leave “You don’t hear much about Remain now… I think it’s fairly apparent he had other motives.” Interesting to see how many of the criticisms from the left of the party chime with the Tory attacks of opportunistic U-turns…
