Starmer had no good options on Burnham – but blocking him is a big risk
It is a sign that the political deck of cards is stacked against you when the only good hand is one that was never really going to be dealt,And so it was with Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham,In an ideal world for the prime minister, Andrew Gwynne’s announcement that he was stepping down from his Gorton and Denton seat would have been followed by Burnham saying he already had a job as Greater Manchester mayor and would sit this one out, thanks very much,But given the inevitably of Burnham taking up a rare chance to get back into Westminster politics, Starmer was faced instead with two fairly terrible choices: block him, and be accused of partisan control-freakery; or allow the candidacy and put the matter in the hands of fate,It is worth noting that if Labour’s national executive committee (NEC) had granted Burnham his wish, this would have been just the first step in the process: the mayor would have had to get the local party’s backing and actually win the seat before arriving in parliament as a shiny would-be heir apparent.
But the NEC’s decision, which is in effect No 10’s, seemingly places an absolute full-stop on this chronology,It is perhaps not much of a surprise, given that for all his reputation for U-turning on national policy, when it comes to internal party matters Starmer is generally decisive, even ruthless,Within weeks of becoming Labour leader in 2020, Starmer banished Rebecca Long-Bailey, the leftwinger who came second in the leadership contest, from his shadow cabinet amid a controversy about antisemitism,Later that year, Jeremy Corbyn, whom Starmer replaced as leader, was suspended from the party, also over a dispute about antisemitism, never to return,But Sunday’s decision carries notably greater risks.
Starmer is no longer the bright-eyed new captain tasked by members with steering Corbyn’s listing ship off the rocks.Yes, he won an improbable and decisive election victory just 18 months ago, but Labour are now tanking in the polls while Starmer’s personal rating with the public is not far off Liz Truss levels.There are, in fact, some perfectly good political reasons why Burnham abandoning his mayoralty for a tilt at parliament would not be an entirely good idea, set out with vehemence by allies of Starmer.These include the sheer costs of a mayoral byelection and associated Labour campaign just halfway though a four-year term, what some see as the damage caused by a divisive Reform campaign, and then the destabilising impact of a man whose ambitions are very obvious sitting on the Labour benches in the Commons.But on the other side of the ledger sits a series of risks and consequences that Starmer will now face.
The first, to be thrown at him repeatedly by Labour and opposition critics alike, is that the move shows him to be weak, more focused on protecting his job than finding ways to boost Labour’s chances.It is true that Burnham’s reputation in Westminster has been enhanced by nothing quite so much as his absence from it for nearly a decade, but he has proved an adept mayor, carving out a distinct, left-leaning but growth-focused Labour strand of what he termed last week as “Manchesterism”.As a totemic figure in the north-west he would have been expected to win the byelection.If a less substantial candidate is picked and the seat falls to Reform UK, the repercussions for Starmer could be grim.At the national level, this is the increasing worry among many Labour MPs and ministers: they see Starmer as simply unable to resurrect the party and hold off what is viewed by them as the utterly terrifying prospect of a Reform government.
Perhaps more than anything else, that is what they want to stop, and if they believe Starmer cannot do it, they will turn to someone else.For now it will not be Burnham.But this is merely a debate delayed, not ended.
‘They’re trying to milk us’: leaseholders tell of soaring charges amid Labour reform delays
“I don’t say this lightly, but I feel traumatised by this,” said Sarah*, a leaseholder who owns a one-bedroom flat in Moseley, south Birmingham. “Every time I open the front door to my house I’m expecting some frightening letter with lots of zeros on it. It has ruined my life, to be honest.”Sarah works full-time as a school teacher, but has been forced to take up a second job to pay the spiralling bills from the management company of her building.While she was aware of the annual service charge of around £1,400, she wasn’t prepared for the bills for a reserve fund which have risen steeply as the management company aims to secure an extra £400,000 from residents for a roof replacement and other projects
Teachers in England driving homeless pupils to school and washing clothes, research shows
Schools are regularly referring homeless children to food banks, driving them to classes and washing their clothes, according to research.A survey conducted by the housing charity Shelter and NASUWT, also known as the Teachers’ Union, asked 11,000 teachers about their experiences of working with children living in temporary accommodation.There are now a record 175,025 children in temporary housing in England, according to the most recent government figures. Many families affected are living in B&Bs, hostels and overcrowded flats.Most teachers who responded said homeless children had attended their school in the last year
High on ... mustard? Cannabis industry teams up with chefs in push to stand out
Food and stoner culture have always gone together, but these days chefs and cannabis professionals are working together to find thoughtful, new ways to incorporate weed into meals.For National Hot Pastrami Day on 14 January, a celebrated Jewish deli in Chicago teamed up with a local Illinois dispensary to give customers free pastrami sandwiches garnished with cannabis-infused mustard.The “High on Rye” event was held in the parking lot of Ivy Hall dispensary’s Logan Square location. Customers lined up for free pastrami sandwiches from Steingold’s Deli, complete with an intoxicating brown mustard. Asked if the mustard was a one-time gimmick or the beginning of something bigger, Aaron Steingold, the deli’s founder and Jonny Boucher, Ivy Hall’s director of marketing, said they weren’t sure – but they were having a good time
Reform UK’s private health insurance plan would cost £1.7bn, Streeting to say
Reform UK’s policy of tax relief on private health insurance could cost the country £1.7bn, the health secretary, Wes Streeting, is expected to say on Saturday.Streeting will make the claim at a conference organised by the Fabian Society, a socialist thinktank aligned to the Labour party, and will describe the Reform proposal as a “tax cut for the wealthiest”.Before the 2024 general election, Reform pledged to offer tax relief of 20% on all private healthcare policies if it won power. The party claimed in its manifesto that this would improve the general standard of care by reducing demands on the NHS
The ADHD grey zone: why patients are stuck between private diagnosis and NHS care
Sameer Modha knows the ADHD system all too well. He has been diagnosed himself, as have his two children, giving him a clear view of how the system works – and where it breaks down.While his own diagnosis was relatively straightforward, the experience with his daughter was very different. The diagnosis he obtained for his eldest child, after an assessment carried out privately by a “very senior ex-Camhs [child and adolescent mental health service] director, someone who knows the system and has seen a huge amount of this”, was later rejected by the NHS. He was told it was not compliant with guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), which sets healthcare standards nationally
Seeing red over the Greens’ advocacy of ‘buy the supply’ housing policy | Letters
I was surprised to see Siân Berry (Letters, 9 January) advocate that Labour “buy the supply” of landlord homes as a way of increasing the stock of social housing. Siân may want to pay more attention closer to home. The Labour council in Brighton and Hove is pursuing exactly that policy, as was featured in the Guardian last year (Right to buy in reverse: how Brighton is tackling its social housing crisis, 26 October).As with many policy areas, the Greens like soundbites and writing letters, but often have vanishingly little interest in actual policy implementation. It was invariably the case when the Greens ran Brighton and Hove city council: a lot of talking about the climate crisis, but little progress in expanding recycling nor city-wide decarbonisation – something that we are now putting right
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