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Britain's prime minister to step down, Burnham puts himself forward as successor
- mytailorisrich 5mo agoOut of the frying pan and into the fire?
- joenada 5mo agoBurnham down the house.
- jjgreen 5mo agoGive the Manc a chance!
- jcsager 5mo agoHe's not a Manc, he's a Scouser originally.
- dude250711 5mo agoWhy not like borrow lots of money and spend it all? That would be so cool!
- bluescrn 5mo agoAnd he'll be just as powerless to solve any of the big problems as the last half a dozen PMs.
- rapsey 5mo agoA completely pointless exercise for all involved. Rearranging deck chairs of the titanic that is the labour party.
- stirlo 5mo agoThe issue isn’t the Labour Party it’s the entire country. Brexit has been a disaster, energy costs are through the roof, housing is becoming more costly, and there’s been no real economic growth in a decade. But no one wants suffer the temporary pain to make the reforms needed to change it. They just want to grumble and say the current leader isn’t any good before moving onto the next one, rather than admitting they might need to actually accept some change in the country.
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago> no one wants suffer the temporary pain to make the reforms needed to change it If you could get one bill through Parliament, what would it do?
- Y_Y 5mo agoDisband the UK
- dabeeeenster 5mo agoRejoin the EU, single market, customs union, drop sterling and take the Euro. This would almost certainly start a civil war in the UK (I am not being dramatic) but its what is needed. Brexit was -8% GDP, according to Bank of England.
- PunchyHamster 5mo agoOh, no, we don't want you, keep your mess to yourself instead of making it EU's
- pjc50 5mo agoThis wouldn't start a civil war. Many of the Brexit voters are already dead and most of the rest are retired.
- hn_throw2025 5mo ago
- cassianoleal 5mo agoThere is one thing that might be in his power: to stop censoring and arresting people protesting against genocide. Edit: lol thanks HN for the usual downvote! :) I love this place!
- gadders 5mo ago...or any topic really. More people on the right than the left are being jailed for hurty words.
- JumpCrisscross 5mo agoGetting constantly distracted by foreign-policy items 90% of voters barely care about is how the UK wound up in this mess.
- gadders 5mo agoOh agreed. If anyone cares that much travel back to whichever country they support and enlist. Also renounce your British citizenship at the same time.
- gaiagraphia 5mo agoI practically beelined to Ukraine when the war broke out and dedicated a good 2 months to humanitarian work. I've probably achieved more independently than huge organised movements with probable nation state backing. Huge amounts of funding, huge election talking points, hundreds of thousands of people, entire student bodies, propaganda networks, and what quantifiable achievements have been made? It all comes off as a preformative social occasion with 0 goals. Have far more respect for those who put their money where their mouth is and actually joined ISIS than the professional protestor caste.
- gadders 5mo agoI always think of the example of my step-grandad (amongst others) who left the UK to join the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War.
- gadders 5mo agoWell Starmer had a massive majority and could have got whatever was needed passed to sort out public finances, but his MPs rebelled (or he chickened out).
- throwaway27448 5mo agoHe was elected to ensure nothing corbyn worked for would succeed, and in that sense he was perfect.
- gadders 5mo agoI think economics would have ensured that nothing Corbyn worked for succeeded.
- throwaway27448 5mo agoWe'll never know, because Britain hasn't pretended to give a shit about its citizens in generations
- tim333 5mo agoThere isn't that easy a fix. Since Brexit "cake and eat it" lies, and "fuck business" deal (both Boris quotes), business has been a bit well, fucked. Hence high debt, poor economy, seven different prime ministers as people thinking sticking a different person in no 10 will make the screwed trade deals and huge debt magically cease to be.
- marysol5 5mo agoAnd were being dealt with quite well by Starmer, but that wasn't good enough somehow
- markus_zhang 5mo agoJust a symptom of late Capitalism. They are all like this one but with different flavor.
- cryo32 5mo agoPeople forget that the government is still mostly the civil service. The thin veneer of politicians over the top doesn't change the operating constraints of the UK unless you can spend a long time on the matter and reshape things slowly. Which was what was happening until this mess. Now it's start again...
- bmsleight_ 5mo agoThe 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 .
- throwccp 5mo ago[dead]
- roenxi 5mo agoI'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_United_Kingdom_general_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_U...
- pjc50 5mo agoThe collapse of the ancient Conservative party to behind not one but two crank astroturf right-wing parties is something to behold.
- throwaway27448 5mo agoSame problems, different face.
- OgsyedIE 5mo agoWhilst 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.
- reedf1 5mo agoI know you probably didn't mean it that way - but people with aphantasia are often very creative, and visionary despite.
- MichaelZuo 5mo agoWell the bigger issue is that none of the major parties in the UK have any kind of sensible list of priorities, that they can actually whip the MPs to stick to. So governance is, at best, semi random…
- pjc50 5mo agoThe police swerved hard into deploying state capacity against exactly the wrong people: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/12/more-women-arrested-terror-offences-men-palestine-action/?msockid=3d76bbfa31016ef70f17acf330766fdc https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/12/more-women-arres... Meanwhile ignoring the actually violent far right to the point that we had arson attacks in Belfast and a stabbing spree killer in Edinburgh.
- mellosouls 5mo agoRidiculous 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-peterborough-hospital-pfi https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jun/28/labour-debt-peter...
- mytailorisrich 5mo agoAgree with your first sentence but he is described as being on the very left wing of the party and, if he becomes PM, it will be with the support of the left wing, not the blairites.
- marysol5 5mo agoThen we will have a hot-minute before they're utterly hating him and demanding he goes too
- SideburnsOfDoom 5mo ago> he is described as being on the very left wing of the party By whom, and why are they worth taking seriously? Some politicians these days say all kinds of deranged nonsense about their opponents, and very often paint them as "far left" regardless of actual position. It's not worth taking at face value if it comes from there.
- mytailorisrich 5mo agoHis 2010 leadership bid was very much on the left and now he is clearly pitching on the left, too. It may not be the furthest left but it is very left nonetheless and John McDonnell's support is not random. ot sure what's controversial or "deranged nonsense" there, strange... Obviously we shall see what he actually does if he becomes PM.
- SideburnsOfDoom 5mo ago
- cryo32 5mo agoMight 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.
- PaulHoule 5mo agoYou mean Starmer has a personality?
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- cryo32 5mo agoGod no. None at all. That's what we need though. No more bloody populist snakes!
- PaulHoule 5mo agoTrouble is we are bouncing back and forth between centrist politicians who are great at coalition management but systematically sweep problems under the rug [1] and can't connect with people and populist politicians who connect with people but can't govern and flood the zone with bullshit or improperly formulated issues. One alternative is that we find politicians that can connect and can govern, the other alternative is wait a few decades for the situation that the Club of Rome warned you about to unfold and count on a less complex civilization to be easier to govern. [1] one cynical take is that it is a primary function of political systems to keep problems off the agenda because the agenda is finite.
- sph 5mo ago> No more bloody populist snakes! And who are the idiots, the pensioners, the facebook dwelling, the Daily Mail reading knuckle draggers gonna vote? You get Farage because people want a Farage. I mean, have you seen what happened across the pond? The dumb people, those with endless thirst for easy solution to complex problems, are the ones deciding the fate of the country. They’re the first ones lining up at the voting booth.
- DarkNova6 5mo agoStarmer 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.
- soco 5mo agoProvided you do have more than one candidate for the job - Streeting already said nah...
- DarkNova6 5mo agoYeah, it seems like much has already been discussed and agreed upon in the backstage. Burnham comes in, Streeting gives a go, and there is a smooth transition. I could imagine that they simply didn't want to have weeks or months of limbo while the world situation is as unstable as it is. Labour very much campaigned on "being different than Tories". And you could argue that a lengthy contest is counter productive. Especially if it turns into a media circus that only binds attention and resources, giving Farage room to attack. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
- ulfw 5mo agoNo need to get used to him. Won't last long either.
- poly2it 5mo agoJust 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-lane-will-fix-it https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/one-more-lane-bro-one-more-la...
- postepowanieadm 5mo agoWill he last longer than a cabbage?
- keysersoze33 5mo agoFor those unware, this is Keir the Cabbage, distant relative of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Truss_lettuce https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Truss_lettuce
- alsetmusic 5mo ago> 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 5mo agoI 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 5mo agoHopefully 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)
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- stasomatic 4mo ago>It paves the way for Britain's seventh leader in 10 years How come the revolving door? I'd like to taste a bit of that here in the US, but isn't such frequency societally destabilizing? I am not up on UK election process (I assume elections happened), forgive my ignorance.