Burnham gets backing to challenge Starmer
The Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, says MPs are privately urging him to challenge Keir Starmer for the Labour Party leadership.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Burnham set out a broad range of policies he said would “turn the country around”, including a higher council tax on expensive homes in London and the South East, £40 billion of borrowing to build council houses, income tax cuts for lower earners, as well as a 50p rate for the highest-paid.
He also criticised Starmer, warning that Number 10 had created a ‘climate of fear’ among MPs, and accused his administration of creating ‘alienation and demoralisation’ within the party.
“People have contacted me throughout the summer – yeah. I’m not going to say to you that that hasn’t happened, but as I say, it’s more a decision for those people than it is for me.”
Burnham also suggested he still harboured the ambition to be prime minister. “I stood twice to be the leader of the Labour Party. And I think that tells you, doesn’t it?”
The Telegraph reports that several MPs would support a third Burnham leadership campaign, after his losses to Ed Miliband in 2010 and Jeremy Corbyn in 2015.
Trouble for Starmer
Starmer again faced calls to step down this week after allegations that his Chief of Staff, Morgan McSweeney, tried to mislead the elections watchdog over donations to a Labour thinktank he ran while in opposition.
The organisation, Labour Together, was fined £14,250 by the Electoral Commission in 2021 over its handling of almost £740,000 of donations. The Tories have claimed that it used a “false excuse” of administrative errors, the Guardian reports.
The Conservative party has now released a leaked email from Labour lawyer Gerald Shamash, in which he advised McSweeney to drop his claim that he had been told he did not have to declare the donations, adding that he hoped to minimise publicity for the rule breach.
Speaking to GB News, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Pat McFadden MP opposed calls for Keir Starmer to resign following the Morgan McSweeney claims, but said that the responsible parties would be investigated.
“Where people fall short of the high standards expected, they are asked to step down, and that is a really big contrast to what was happening during the general election. Why should the Prime Minister step down? He is doing a good job for the country.”
This is the third internal scandal that Starmer has had to grapple with in the last six weeks. Notably, his Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, resigned over claims of tax abuse, while he was forced to step down as the US Ambassador Peter Mandelson over connections to Jeffrey Epstein.
