Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor

mytailorisrich

Out of the frying pan and into the fire?

bluescrn

And he'll be just as powerless to solve any of the big problems as the last half a dozen PMs.

bmsleight_

The power of having a parliamentary system. Combined with the power of 77,462 residents of Makerfield. Love the UK - we can be brutal if MPs want a leader .

roenxi

I'm not entirely certain of the electoral details, but the UK Labour party is neck-and-neck with the UK Conservatives for falling from being a top-2 party [0]. This type of decisive reform may be sufficient to keep them out of 3rd place, so it is worth a try. The voters could take to it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_U...

throwaway27448

Same problems, different face.

OgsyedIE

Whilst the value of the pound and NHS backlog did slowly improve under Starmer, my favourite part of his term was the 2024 interview where he described himself as not dreaming or having internal thoughts. I don't expect huge improvements under Burnham but I hope for at least some police manpower numbers to recover. There have been intermittent stories of planning, FSA and trading standards personnel being threatened by armed gangs in the last few years which is an indicator of some new severe gaps in state capacity.

mellosouls

Ridiculous and undemocratic. Burnham (for those who are unaware) can be best described as a Tony Blair B-side, and is most notable from his previous stint in government for his role in the Private Finance Initiative disaster, eg: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jun/28/labour-debt-peter...

cryo32

Might as well just hand Farage the next general election at this rate. The last decade has been personality cult after personality cult. We had the start of stability and have thrown chaos in again. Just what the opposition want.

DarkNova6

Starmer was the UK version of Joe Biden. He was the right guy to get Labor back on track and sort out the financial disaster left by the Tories. But he couldn't build a convincing vision of the future. But replacing it with another guy that has no mandate is a fatal mistake. What Labor needed was an internal contest to fight for the best ideas, even if the winner was already pre-determined. A single local poll can't possibly decide the future of the country. But perhaps the idea is to trigger a re-election because a "continue as usual" will be fatal for Labour and the country.

ulfw

No need to get used to him. Won't last long either.

poly2it

Just one more minister, I promise you, just one more and all politics will resolve. Come on, just one more and it will fix everything. Please just one more. One more minister and we can fix the whole problem. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/one-more-lane-bro-one-more-la...

postepowanieadm

Will he last longer than a cabbage?

alsetmusic

> Here's a look at his 'Manchesterism' vision and economic model for Britain, which he describes as "business-friendly socialism" I admit to knowing very little (close to nothing) about UK politics. But I'm happy to see the use of "socialism" in up-front talking points. It's at least a nod in the right direction. > He says years of privatization and deregulation have not only stripped the government of control over its costs and services but also saddled it with inefficiencies. Ok, also seems reasonable. > Burnham campaigned for Britain to stay in the European Union at the time of the Brexit referendum in 2016. Yes, still good (on the surface, anyway). > Farage's party has been well ahead of Labour in opinion polls for many months. Unrelated to the stuff directly above but still disappointing. Dems and Labour need to do a better job or disaffected people will continue to listen to the siren song of fascists telling them that their problems are caused by THE SPOOKY OTHER.

BadBadJellyBean

I think this is getting ridiculous. My proposal: Let's get rid of the position of PM altogether. Maybe then the musical chairs will stop.

davidguetta

Hopefully the successor will clean the mess still left realted to the Pakistani rape gangs and police collusion. The entire UK society seem to have been trying to ignore the issue rather than solve the root of it (which is not necessarily immigration itself but political correctness)