Andy burnham

This weekend’s YouGov poll showing Ed Miliband ahead in the Labour leadership contest is the talk of Westminster today. One David Miliband backer told me that he thought it was flawed as it assumed that MPs’ second preferences would split evenly between the two brothers when David had the advantage. I was told that nearly all Andy Burnham’s parliamentary backers would put David second, that most of Balls’ would do the same and that Ed Miliband could only rely on Diane Abbott’s parliamentary backers’ second preferences. But Ed Miliband’s supporters dispute this. They believe that they are making progress everywhere.   There are now just two hustings to go—one at

David Miliband’s performance in Sky News’ Labour leadership hustings will have calmed the nerved of his supporters. In the run-off between him and his brother, David came out on top. His answers were generally sharper and he managed to parry away Ed’s criticisms on tuition fees and foreign policy. (In a pointed remark, Ed said that the Labour government’s foreign policy had been based on ‘old ideas’.) Indeed, Ed Miliband only seemed to get going in his closing statement which was pitch-perfect David’s best moment came when the contenders were asked to pick between Blair and Brown. Ed Balls opted for Brown, Diane Abbott said that Brown ‘was the better

As Tim Montgomerie notes, cuts are becoming more real. Yesterday, the government axed NHS Direct, the telephone health service. Actually it hasn’t been axed but replaced by the more cost effective ‘111’ service. Removing the sacrosanct letters ‘NHS’ from the title of any body is anathema to the opposition, who have mobilised a frantic defence over the past 24 hours, so predictable and I can barely contain my indifference. Twitter has exploded in a fit of righteous indignation; Ed Balls, without a hint of irony, is using words like ‘callous’ and ‘ill-thought policies’; and Andy Burnham’s talking about Andrew Lansley’s ‘vindictive mission to break up the NHS’. It’s the name

Whilst Ed Balls descends into bellicose self-caricature, Andy Burnham, the quiet man of this campaign, has written an incendiary article for the Guardian. It is subtly constructed: behind the veneer of his folksy idiom, Burnham proclaims a self-conscious radicalism. He has sharpened some of the ideas expressed so loosely in his pamphlet Aspirational Socialism. He advocates the adoption of land value tax, the abolition of inheritance tax and a very tough Blairite stance on crime and the causes of crime. He angrily dismisses the Milibands as thoughtless ‘comfort zone’ politicians, both stuck dumb in a trance to the mantra of ‘tax and spend’. Burnham’s aides must be as aghast as

Andy Burnham’s leadership campaign is going the way of all flesh. According to Left Foot Forward’s model, Burnham is set to come fourth behind Ed Balls. A You Gov poll predicted a similarly poor showing for Burnham. I’m surprised by this. Burnham is presentable against a field of gawky rivals. Also, after a faltering start, he has tuned a clear anti-establishment message, crafted to politicise the north south divide and New Labour’s soulless metropolitanism. He reiterates it for today’s Independent, arguing that the party has been run for too long in ‘an elitist, London-centric and controlling way’ and that New Labour was ‘born of a distrust of its members.’ He

I can’t work out what’s stranger: that anyone, let along the author Ken Follett, should donate £100,000 to Ed Balls’ leadership campaign, or that the Liverpool footballer Jamie Carragher (“Mr Liverpool”) should give £10,000 to the devoted Evertonian Andy Bunrham. Either way, they’re probably the two stand-out entries in the latest list of Labour leadership donations. But the real story is the same as the last time the donations were published: David Miliband’s monetary advantage. Even with Ed Balls raising £103,000 in July, the elder Miliband brother still comes out on top with £138,835 – adding to an overall war chest which dwarfs those of all the other contenders. The

Humble hat-tips to Iain Dale and Jim Pickard for spotting this fun exchange in Labour Uncut’s interview with Andy Burnham: Q. (from Jackie): If you had the choice between playing for Everton in an FA cup final, or become the next Labour Prime Minister which would you chose? A. (after exactly two seconds) Everton, FA Cup final. press secretary: (howls) No! Q. That is a bold statement! press secretary: I’m going to kill him. Q. She is going to strangle you when I leave. press secretary: I am. Campaign manager Kevin: Can you re-answer that one please Andy. A. Well it’s a different choice isn’t it! That [playing in the

How could I have forgotten to mention this in my last post? In that YouGov poll on the Labour leadership race, Ed Balls finished in a resounding last place. Yep, the former Schools Secretary is stuck on 11 percent of first preference votes – behind both Diane Abbott and Andy Burnham, who are tied on 12 percent, as well as both Miliband brothers of course. And the news has got Jim Pickard and Mehdi Hasan wondering: just what will Balls do next? Has he given up on winning? Will he drop out of the race and concentrate on becoming shadow chancellor? I know plenty of Tories who wouldn’t know whether

Ed Balls has been on the phone to Mehdi Hasan of the New Statesman. ‘Nothing to do with me Guv,’ is his response to the Independent’s story about briefings against Andy Burnham. Balls has gone to great lengths to re-invent himself. Ever since the Damian McBride scandal, the former Education Secretary has tried to banish the bully-boy reputation he built as Gordon Brown’s protégé. Masks barely obscure the face; but, to be fair to Balls, his opponents benefit from recalling his unpalatable past. During the New Statesman’s leadership debate, Ed Miliband said: “It’s just like being back in the Treasury, Ed!” So it’s plausible that the anti-Burnham briefings may have

Ok, so the general public doesn’t much care for this AV referendum – and understandably so.  But at least it has added a good slug of uncertainty into the brew at Westminster.  Already, curious alliances are emerging because of it – Exhibit A being Jack Straw and the 1922 Committee.  And no-one’s really sure about what the result of the vote will be, or whether it will deliver a killing blow to the coalition itself. But regardless of what happens on 5 May 2011, it’s clear that one group is already benefitting from the prospect of a referendum: the Labour leadership contenders.  Until now, they’ve been distinguished by their indistinguishability

It’s days like this when you realise just how stuck Labour are in a Brownite groove.  Everywhere you turn, there’s some leadership candidate or other attacking the government for choosing to cut public spending this year.  Ed Miliband claims that the Lib Dems have been “completely macho … completely cavalier” about cuts.  Andy Burnham says that this year could “damage us in the long run”.  And even those who aren’t chasing the leadership are getting in on the act: Alistair Darling writes that the coalition has “a fiscal policy that undermines fragile growth”. So we already know what Labour’s broad response to this week’s Budget will look like.  But it

With ill-repressed horror, James Macintyre reports that the remnants of New Labour fear that Diane Abbott might win the Labour leadership, courtesy of the preferential vote. Mildly amusing I suppose. If Ed Balls would be a catastrophe of Footian proportions as leader what would Abbott be? There are no historical parallels.   I can’t see this latter day Rosa Luxemburg enticing Labour members. But if she does, then David Miliband, that auteur of absurdity, is to blame. Abbott’s weapon is communication. Unlike her four opponents, she doesn’t sound like an under-manager at Furniture Village. She is accessible, particularly on television – and the hopefuls will be up before Paxman tonight.

Perhaps it’s just me but this morning’s Labour leadership machinations are a farce of political correctness. Everyone is falling over themselves to be as nice as possible and essentially rig the ballot so that Diane Abbott receives a nomination. As James notes, it’s a peculiar tactic as Abbott will cause no end of trouble for the ‘serious’ contenders for the ultimate prize. Needless to say, David Miliband, that auteur of absurdity, planted the banana skin. Attempting to be magnanimous but excelling in pomposity, he has voted for Abbot and urges all to do the same. My hunch is that there are many on the right of the party who will

One of the mildly diverting features of the Labour leadership contest so far is this nominations counter on the party website.  Ed Miliband was the first to pass the crucial 33 nominations barrier yesterday, while David Miliband managed it earlier today.  Ed Balls is still lagging behind on 14, Andy Burnham has 8, and poor John McDonnell and Diane Abbott both have none.  Yep, the excitement is reaching fever pitch. There’s one curious feature to it all, though, highlighted by Danny Finkelstein earlier.  Why have some of the candidates – or their nominators – been holding back on their nominations?  David Miliband, for instance, has considerably more than 37 backers,

Tales of the expected and the unexpected this morning, as two more names enter the Labour leadership fray. The first is the expected one: Andy Burnham, who announces his bid in an article for the Mirror. And the unexpected one is … Diane Abbott, who revealed her intentions on the Today programme earlier. That thud you heard afterwards was the sound of a thousand jaws hitting the ground in Westminster. Both will, I suspect, do much to improve the contest as a spectator sport. Abbott will have no qualms about attacking the record of the Blair and Brown years. And neither, it seems, will Andy Burnham. In his Mirror article

As James suggested, the mood is shifting against a Lib-Lab coalition this afternoon. And now the idea has been dealt its biggest blow so far: Andy Burnham has spoken out against it public. Taking the kind of deliberate step that suggests he may be up for the Labour leadership after all, the Health Secretary said: “I think we have got to respect the results of the general election and we can’t get away from the fact that Labour didn’t win.” And there’s more. According to the irrepressible Paul Waugh, Burnham first made his discontent known in Labour’s Cabinet meeting last night – where, according to Channel 4’s Gary Gibbon, he