Starmer is in big trouble. If he goes, could gov fall - impact on the messy world we are in now

Would be hilarious if Burnham didn't get elected.

The whole things is beyond messy, England politically are the new Italy.

This is now playing out like some Middle Age epic. A Northern lord - should he win the Battle of Makerfield will march on London to claim his throne. Standing in his way is the evil lord Darth Farage and his growing hordes, as well as a recently established cult under Polanski. Even if Burnham overcomes these foes he must then displace the Steward Starmer. But even if he makes it that far - all he inherits is a divided party ruling a divided country that will wants to be divided socially, legislatively and philosophically. Truly feels like the times are darkening

The by-election will be hard to win if the Conservatives decline to run a candidate - which they could do - to add to Labours problems!

It's hard to know. It would certainly require a massive swing back to Labour compared to last week. I mean, if he's so popular, how come Lab, and the councils it ran under his mayoralty, lost every borough in Greater Manchester last week, with an average vote of not much above 25%?

So whose head ends up on a spike on the M25?

The mayoralty isn't a "seat" and he doesn't have to resign it unless he wins the by-election so Labour can't lose both.

Apparently this is the case. For some reason I was under the impression that he had to resign as mayor to stand. It will be very interesting to see how the mayoral election goes if he is in fact elected as an MP.

What's happening to Greater Manchester Mayor role now Andy Burnham wants to be an MP - Manchester Evening News

University of Liverpool Professor of English and Irish politics, Jon Tonge, posted on X this morning to clarify comments about the subject made on BBC Radio 5 Live this morning.

Jon Tonge on X: "To clarify re Burnham (re 5 Live interview earlier): He remains Mayor of Gtr Man until/if he is elected MP for Makerfield. At that point he would legally forfeit his mayoral position and a GM Mayoral by-election process begins. If he loses in Makerfield he could continue as mayor" / X

Has Streeting boxed in Burnham by declaring his support for re-entering the EU. Does Burnham do the same or publicly agree with Brexit. Either way it will be difficult for him. Could get very interesting.

Whilst the UK has its own inherent problems - I still think that its predominant one is shared across the western world - which is that the pursuit of globalisation whilst economically coherent globally produces huge wastelands on a micro level. Maximising economic totality is not the same (in fact may contradict) high internal happiness. Without wishing for it - the polarisation we are seeing in the US and UK is not unique to them - it may just have hit them earlier

Looks like a 5th UK PM in the 2020s then.

Starmer has outlasted Sunak and Truss (combined!), but looks likely not to make 2 years in office.

He's gone. Wait and see what the new PM brings. If he's strong on immigration, it'll be tents of the streets here again.

I'm not saying the following in a sense that I advocate it, but it's clear to me that there has been a disquiet in Britain about immigration since at least the 1960s, particularly as a lot more non-white people showed up, and that the current griping about the boats is really just an expression of that and not really the main complaint. To the people who harbour this feeling, Labour's efforts to curb immigration, no matter how effective, doesn't change the fact that somewhere like Leicester's demography has radically changed in the last 60 years.

It seems like the main parties don't want to talk about this, but by not talking about it, all they're really doing is leaving an open goal for Reform and, even worse, Restore Britain. 'cause they will talk about it.

The stats show migration to the UK is way down already.

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries/labours-pledges-on-migration-the-data/

This won't fit the agenda though.

The problem alone is not emigration .

The problem is welfare .There is a big % of emigrants drawing big social wefare who have never worked but alongside this you have 3rd and 4th generations British house holds similar.