Burnham was never the real answer to Labour's problems

As in so many areas of life, it's a good idea to make decisions about your political career by asking how others, friendly or otherwise, might view them. So it is with Andy Burnham.

- SEAN O'GRADY

Had the Labour leadership not been ruthless enough to put the interests of the party first and block Burnham's latest halfhearted, half-arsed attempt at a leadership bid, we know, don't we, what would have followed. From now on, every week at Prime Minister's Questions, Kemi Badenoch would have been jabbing her finger at the government benches, lecturing Labour about its permanent leadership crisis.

Whether Burnham was parked on the front bench as a semi-loyal minister, or further back as an occasional, but pungent, northern voice of dissent, the line would have been the same: Starmer would have been cast as a weak leader of a divided party, who can't even get his own MPs to back him. Every other Tory and Reform politician would have piled in with identical attacks. The effect would have been debilitating. This was, after all, precisely what Starmer once did to successive Tory leaders, and with enormous glee.

This, in essence, was the reality Starmer pointed to when he defended the decision of Labour's national executive committee (NEC) to block Burnham from standing in the Gorton and Denton by-election. The prime minister argued that the issue was focus, not fear.

"We have really important elections across England, Wales and Scotland that will affect millions of people," Starmer said. "We need all our focus on those contests, campaigning on the cost of living. Andy Burnham is doing a great job as mayor of Manchester, but holding a mayoral election when it isn't necessary would divert money and people away from elections we must fight and win. That was the basis of the NEC decision."