“Hailed as a political genius by some”, Morgan McSweeney was seen as a “Machiavellian puppeteer manipulating a compliant” Keir Starmer on his journey from Labour Party leader in 2020 to prime minister in 2024, said Patrick Cockburn in The i Paper.

Yet in his first interviews since appearing before the Foreign Affairs Committee in April, two months after quitting as Starmer’s chief of staff, McSweeney claimed the party failed to prepare adequately for office, and that one of the hardest tasks in opposition was trying to “persuade people that we could win”.

Emerging from the shadows to speak to the Financial Times and the BBC, McSweeney is presumably trying to “establish a public profile in his post-political life”, said Ian Dunt in The i Paper. “His way of achieving this is to admit to rudimentary errors in political operations as if they were startling insights available only to those with the requisite experience.”

What did he say?

McSweeney was “surprisingly candid” with the BBC’s Nick Robinson on his “Political Thinking” podcast about the Labour Party’s failure to lay the groundwork for government while in opposition, said Ethan Croft in The New Statesman.

“We didn’t prepare enough for what kind of world we were going to,” said McSweeney, and the party didn’t grasp that it was in a “very different era” to when it was last in office. “We didn’t have enough conversations at the top of the party about what that meant, how to prepare for it, what that meant for the state.”

What mistakes were made?

McSweeney believes the “first self-inflicted wound” of the Starmer government was the Treasury’s decision to cut winter fuel payments for “10 million better-off pensioners”, said the FT. This was then “compounded” by the donations scandal involving McSweeney and the Labour Together think tank, and the first budget, which prioritised long-term financial reforms over immediate help for the electorate who voted them into power.

The former chief-of-staff admitted that the government should have been “laser focused on the cost of living from day one”. Voters were “really angry with the state of the country. They thought we promised change and we got distracted.”

Labour quickly lost popular support. Its approval ratings fell from 37.5% in July 2024 to 23.3% in June 2025 – the steepest drop for any government in its first year since 1983, said Shea Ferguson on UnHerd.

Ultimately, it was his role in the appointment of Peter Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to the US that forced McSweeney to resign. McSweeney had recommended Mandelson for the role, and admitted that “I failed in my job and failed in my duty”. But he denied it was his fault that Mandelson was offered the position. “I hope that one day Mandelson recognises the damage he has done to a Labour government that carried the hopes of millions of people.”

What can Andy Burnham learn?

McSweeney believes Labour MPs were motivated to oust Starmer because they concluded he could not win the next election, “not because they want to scratch some ideological itch”, said the FT. The former adviser also welcomed the idea of Burnham as Starmer’s successor, and approves of the plan to split No. 10 between London and Manchester.

If McSweeney can “serve any function” now, said Dunt, it is to “provide a moral warning to Andy Burnham’s team”. When Labour was elected in 2024, McSweeney and Starmer had a “historic responsibility” to dispel populism and show that mainstream politics could operate effectively. They had spent years attacking Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak for “governing like drunken clowns in a restaurant kitchen”.

But in office, Labour had “no project, no set of beliefs, no plan for what they wanted to do”, and crucially failed to deliver “quick change” to earn the electorate’s trust. Barring a substantial shock, Burnham will become the next prime minister, and he “must not make the same mistake”.

Keir Starmer promised to give his successor as prime minister his “full and unequivocal support” but Andy Burnham must be wondering what Starmer’s definition of “full and unequivocal” is, following this week’s defence announcement.

Starmer announced a £15 billion increase in spending in his £298 billion Defence Investment Plan (DIP). Of the £15 billion, around two thirds will be raised from “efficiency savings” of quangos, and “cutting capital budgets across Whitehall by 1%”, said The Guardian.

However, £4.7 billion remains unfunded, with the Treasury saying it will be allocated in the next budget, creating a defence black hole for the next prime minister and chancellor.

As presumptive prime minister, Andy Burnham will “somehow need to find more money”, said the Financial Times’ editorial board, likely through a series of unpopular savings. Whether he can succeed where Starmer has failed on defence spending “will be a defining test” of Burnham’s premiership.

‘Dirty rotten trick’

Starmer has left the prime-minister-in-waiting a “series of unexploded bombs” in the DIP to resolve in the first months of his expected term, said political editor Steven Swinford in The Times. Numbers aside, there was an “even bigger bombshell”: no date was set for when a Starmer’s pledge to spend 3% of GDP on defence would be met, “or indeed 3.5% for that matter”.

It is “highly unclear” how reforming the civil service – which has “only got bigger” – and “breaking down operational barriers” will be achieved. Even if Burnham navigates Starmer’s legacy safely, it will have “significant fiscal implications for his own plans”.

This isn’t about Starmer acquiescing on defence, said John Rentoul in The Independent. It is about him “trying to blow up Andy Burnham before he’s started”. Starmer had promised in his resignation to work “dutifully” in the interests of the nation and oversee an “orderly transition”: “he didn’t mean a word of it”. This “dirty rotten trick” shows us in public what he has been feeling in private. He feels “betrayed” by Burnham, Wes Streeting and Shabana Mahmood, and has “no intention of making life easy for them”.

“Sir Keir Starmer hasn’t actually sewn raw prawns into the hems of the Downing Street curtains, but he might as well have,” said former Labour MP Tom Harris in The Telegraph. His “two-faced” and “spiteful” actions look “all the more distasteful” considering his upset over inheriting his own £22 billion black hole from Rishi Sunak’s government. “We expected more of Starmer.”

Burnham’s ‘call to arms’

If Burnham is “fazed” by this situation, he “isn’t fit to be PM”, said James Lyons, former Downing Street Director of Strategic Communications, in The i Paper. The near-£5 billion deficit he needs to fill is “peanuts” compared to the £1 trillion-plus that the Government spends. The problem could just “disappear” “at a stroke” with improved forecasts, much like the recent Spring Statement, where estimates for the figure needed to achieve it were reduced from £20 billion to £8 billion. “The bad news is that they could also go the other way.” For any chance of success, Burnham needs to “pick a small number of issues” and “stick to them through thick and thin”.

Now this is a “ding-dong political row”, said James Heale in The Spectator. The DIP’s financial commitments were listed in “vague, euphemistic terms”, meaning Burnham’s selection of a chancellor to resolve the £4.7 billion gap is “the most important decision he makes in the next few months”. Burnham has previously shown “little interest” in defence, but it is likely to be a “staple theme of his in-tray”. “He will need an experienced and effective chancellor by his side.”

The MP for Makerfield should see the DIP as a “call to arms” on public finances, said The Times’ editorial board. By arguing that his hands are tied, Burnham could use Starmer’s “political sleight of hand” to “spur him to take radical action on pensions and welfare” to make up the shortfall. Public spending is “out of control”, and if Burnham is to “break free he must attack the root causes”: high borrowing costs, welfare “profligacy” and the “triple lock”. No one will “challenge the edicts of the messiah”.

In his first speech as prime minister in waiting, Andy Burnham promised he would achieve “good growth in every postcode” and spearhead the “biggest rebalancing of power” in political history.

Keir Starmer announced his own “devolution revolution” in 2024, but Burnham aims to move even more influence away from Westminster towards other regions of the UK to drive more balanced economic growth.

His speech at the People’s ­History Museum in Manchester was “­important in shedding light on a Burnham Britain”, said The Times. As he was championing a “devolution first” attitude, the support of his audience was “not in doubt”. But the “viability of his proposals was”.

How is the UK already devolved?

Manchester has benefited from some of the “most extensive” powers devolved to English cities, said the BBC. It has significant control over local transport, housing and strategic planning decisions.

Northern Ireland and the Welsh Senedd have similar autonomy over health, education and housing policies among others, with the latter also managing local government. In Scotland, Holyrood controls health, education, local government, environment, justice and policing. It can set most income tax rates and has some control over welfare policy, too.

What has Burnham proposed?

Burnham said he would create a “No 10. North”, a new prime minister’s office based in Manchester and acting as the “nerve centre of a rewired Britain”. It would support regional powers in delivering a nationwide agenda of reindustrialisation, regeneration and reform of essential services.

Local authorities would be offered greater control over key utilities such as water, energy and transport. Burnham’s advisers have also “floated ideas” about allowing local authorities to introduce local income tax, and to set and retain business rates to mirror policies in Denmark, Sweden and Canada, said Matthew Brooker on Bloomberg.

The dispersal of power has already begun. The MP for Makerfield has appointed Caroline Simpson as his deputy chief of staff to lead No. 10 North should he become prime minister, said The Guardian. Previously described as Burnham’s “right-hand woman”, the career civil servant has overseen Greater Manchester’s £3 billion-a-year budget since 2024.

What is the aim?

The UK is one of the most centralised economies among developed countries, said Brooker. In 2023, the share of UK tax revenue generated at a subnational level – essentially by regions below the central government – was less than 5%, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. This is compared with 14% for France, 24% for Spain and nearly a third for Germany. “Regions tend to do better when they raise more of their own revenue.”

If Burnham’s devolution policies prove successful, the “big prize” would be a rise in nationwide GDP, said Bloomberg. If the rest of the UK came even halfway to matching London’s productivity levels, the economy would be “at least 4% larger”, according to PwC analysis from 2019.

There has been no indication how Burnham will split his time between London and Manchester, but the decision felt “more significant than the relocation of staff”, said the BBC’s chief political correspondent Henry Zeffman. With a tailored agenda, it could signify a “wider shake-up of the machinery of government is in the offing”.

“Rethinking and reshaping No. 10 is long overdue,” said the Institute for Government. But Burnham’s plans for No. 10 North will only succeed if “he knows – and spells out in public – what a split operation is for”.

‘Don’t overestimate the pink tide’

Adam Serwer at The Atlantic

Candidates “endorsed by New York City’s democratic-socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, swept the city’s primary elections” creating “alarm in both conservative and centrist circles over the future of the Democratic Party,” says Adam Serwer. The “leftist trend goes beyond New York,” but the “boring reality may be that different places have different politics.” What is “happening in Brooklyn doesn’t necessarily tell us what will happen in Texas,” and the Democrats’ “moderate wing is not going extinct any time soon.”

Read more

‘South Africa’s crises will not be solved by blaming migrants’

Zwelinzima Vavi at Al Jazeera

South Africa is “witnessing a dangerous escalation of anti-migrant sentiment,” says Zwelinzima Vavi. The “anger felt by many South Africans is real,” as “entire communities feel abandoned by political leaders who promised a better life but have failed to deliver.” But “while the anger is understandable, it is misdirected,” since migrants “did not create South Africa’s unemployment crisis” or “cause the collapse of local government.” The “roots of South Africa’s multiple crises run much deeper.”

Read more

‘Animals are woven into the fabric of our American story’

Robin Ganzert at Newsweek

The American story is “often told through the lens of presidents, soldiers or titans of industry, but one chapter is commonly overlooked: The practical — and symbolic — role animals have played in the American epic,” says Robin Ganzert. Long “before America ran on electricity, gasoline or machines, the economy was largely agrarian.” From “farming in early settlements to hoofbeats on frontier trails,” animals “have been woven into the fabric of the American story since 1776.”

Read more

‘If Andy Burnham becomes Britain’s next PM, he would just be a more popular version of familiar politics’

Doug Saunders at The Globe and Mail

Potential British Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s “actual policy would differ little in substance” from Keir Starmer’s, “only perhaps in a better articulated, better negotiated, more voter-pleasing form,” says Doug Saunders. The “big difference is not in ideology but in electoral competence.” During his “nine years in mayoral office, a period that included the pandemic and the post-Brexit economic crisis, Mr. Burnham’s popularity has remained sky-high and led him to win a popular vote majority in the by-election.”

Read more

Andy Burnham is preparing his bid for No. 10 after returning to Parliament as a Labour MP.

Burnham is “widely considered a frontrunner”, said The Independent, but now that Keir Starmer has announced his resignation, there are still a couple more weeks for other leadership candidates to throw their hats in the ring.

Some voters, though, are “terrified”, said The Sun, at what a perceived “hard-left Burnham government will do to their bank balances”.

Tax

Labour’s manifesto promise not to increase the rates of income tax, VAT or employee national insurance contributions “will stay”, said The Times, but Burnham has suggested he would raise the £12,570 tax-free personal income allowance for workers.

The former Greater Manchester mayor told the BBC’s Question Time that the personal allowance had been a topic raised “on so many doorsteps” and that, as a result, he would be willing to “have a proper look at this” to develop policy.

Inheritance tax changes “could also be a possibility”, said MoneyWeek, highlighting that, as health secretary in 2009, Burnham suggested a flat 10% charge applied to all estates, “with the money being used to fund social care for all”.

And, in a move that will “terrify middle England”, said The Sun, he has floated reintroducing the “hated” 50p top rate of tax.

Property taxes

Burnham has also “shown enthusiasm for taxing wealth more heavily”, said IFA Magazine.

Writing for The Guardian in 2010, Burnham proposed a land value tax on the market rental value of land. He argued this would “allow for the abolition of stamp duty”.

Such a move would “discourage land hoarding and encourage productive development”, said Tembo Money, but it could raise “legitimate concerns about fairness” for “asset-rich, income-poor homeowners” who might find it difficult to meet higher annual bills.

Mortgages

The credibility of Burnham in the markets, said Sky News, “will matter most for our borrowing costs”.

Burnham has sought to reassure bond investors that he will stick to the government’s existing fiscal rules. But if doubts were to emerge in markets, “mortgage borrowers could be among those to feel the consequences”, said the Financial Times.

Any massive spending plans outlined by Burnham could “trigger a bond market meltdown”, said The Sun, which would push fixed mortgage rates up.

Pensions

In good news for pensioners, Burnham has “reaffirmed the government’s commitment to the triple lock”, said Morningstar, despite “intense scrutiny” of the policy.

But he could use changes to pension tax relief or reductions in the pension tax-free lump sum as a “means of targeting wealth, and raising revenue, without deploying headline wealth taxes”.

The importance of the chancellor 

The “choice of chancellor” will also influence how bond markets react, said The Independent. Currently, Rachel Reeves is seen “as stable, consistent and predictable – all things the market likes”.

A chancellor with a “reputation for fiscal discipline” might “reassure markets”, said MoneyWeek, but a “less disciplined” candidate “could have the opposite effect”.

There will soon be a changing of the guard in the United Kingdom, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced his resignation. But his likely replacement, Makerfield MP Andy Burnham, probably won’t have an easier time than Starmer did courting President Donald Trump. Burnham, a popular figure in the U.K.’s center-left Labour Party, has previously chided Trump and his administration. If he becomes prime minister, it could mark a turning point for American-British relations.

What did the commentators say?

When it comes to the White House’s view on Burnham, there has been no “immediate condemnation from the current administration,” said The Times. But “even if Burnham does benefit from a grace period with the president, his interventions on American politics are unlikely to endear him to Trump for long.” Similarly, the relationship between Starmer and Trump devolved soon after Starmer became prime minister.

Burnham has widely criticized Trump and right-wing U.S. politics. After the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol, he “was scathing about British politicians who held their tongue to appease Trump,” said The Times. “Any U.K. politician who gave Trump the time of day should be ashamed right now,” Burnham said on X at the time. To “combat the rise” of the U.K.’s far-right Reform U.K. party, a Burnham premiership “may be tempted to more openly criticize Trump” with the “knowledge that the U.S. president is reviled by much of the British electorate,” said The Times.

Burnham will also have to reckon with a U.S. president who has “undermined British confidence by deriding British military sacrifices in Afghanistan,” said the Washington Examiner. Trump’s leaking of the announcement that Starmer “would resign and his simultaneously classless (if broadly accurate) criticism of Starmer’s policies further degrades U.S.-U.K. trust.” Burnham, or whoever the next prime minister is, must “be cautious,” as the U.K. is “heavily reliant on the intelligence, military and economic benefits provided by its American alliance.”

Overall, the “mood swings of Mr. Trump may be less of an issue for Mr. Burnham” than they were for Starmer due to the “timeline in America,” said The Independent. By the time a Burnham premiership gets fully settled, the 2026 midterms may have passed, and he will be dealing with a White House “entering the traditional ‘lame duck’ stage where power quickly ebbs away, not least because he cannot run again.”

What next?

Burnham could potentially enter office as prime minister by mid-July, but if there’s a contest for the position, the “election would likely drag on into September,” said The Associated Press. Either way, the U.K.’s likely next prime minister has urged caution against his country moving to be like the United States. “Politics is getting more polarized. And the path we’re on, if we are not careful, is a path toward the politics of the United States of America,” Burnham said during an event in the final days of his parliamentary campaign.

Burnham has also expressed dissent about the similarities between Trump and former Prime Minister Liz Truss, as well as Trump’s 2024 election victory. “The instability that Liz Truss brought to Britain, I think Trump is bringing to the U.S. and the world,” he told The London Economic last year. “Open your eyes to what could be really challenging and difficult issues and things that could polarize people further.”

Another prime minister resigning from office adds to the “unprecedented instability in the modern history” of Britain, said an editorial in Le Monde.

Following his announcement on Monday, Starmer will still “seek to make his final mark on the world stage as a lame-duck prime minister”, said Politico. But a planned EU-UK summit on 22 July has been postponed amid indecision over Britain’s intentions regarding the continent.

With Starmer’s imminent departure, and many of the policies of his likely successor Andy Burnham as yet unknown, Britain’s instability is having tangible consequences on the world stage.

How was Starmer viewed?

“God save the king and this desolate land of the United Kingdom,” said Antonello Guerrera in La Repubblica. Since Starmer was elected in 2024, he has appeared a “robotic and insipid leader” on the domestic front. He has “always been a Hamlet: paralysed by indecision, doubt, and sunk by tragic ineptitude”. And on Monday, “the curtain fell”.

But, aside from being “humiliated” by Donald Trump on social media, many world leaders thanked Starmer for his service, including his “staunch ally” Volodymyr Zelenskyy, his “comrade” Emmanuel Macron, and Giorgia Meloni. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, paid tribute, saying: “It can take many leaders years to grow into the statesman you became in just two years.”

“Pragmatic, cool and rational”, Starmer embodied a strain of “anti-politics” and could get the job done without a fuss, said Enrico Franceschini in La Republicca. But these qualities were eroded by a “lack of charisma, the inability to communicate, and the limited political vision of a prime minister animated by good intentions but unable to implement them”.

Where did it go wrong?

“Beleaguered” Starmer’s tenure was “troubled” from the outset, said Euronews. From failing to declare gifts in the first few months of his premiership, to appointing Peter Mandelson as US ambassador, to numerous policy U-turns on “welfare reform, introducing digital IDs and scrapping winter fuel payments”: his time in office was “littered with controversy”.

Starmer was also “undone by economic stagnation” and “underspending on defence”, said Quentin Letts in The Washington Post. But perhaps the reason he stayed in power so long was that there was “no obvious answer” as to who could replace him.

Fundamentally, Starmer “broke his promise of stability” and “orchestrated constant changes of strategy”, said Claudi Pérez in El País. In his defence, he inherited a “poisoned chalice” of “stagnant” growth, but overall, like “bad tennis players”, he made “too many unforced errors”.

Is Britain an isolated case?

Since Britain voted to leave the EU in 2016, No. 10 has become a “hot seat”, said Deutsche Welle. Whoever succeeds Starmer will be the seventh leader in that period, and will be “grappling with profound political, economic, and social problems”.

Before Starmer, according to Der Spiegel, the UK had “gambler” David Cameron, someone who tried to “pick up the pieces” in Theresa May, the “scandals”-ridden Boris Johnson, a “zigzag” six-week tenure from Liz Truss, and a leader of “negative momentum” in Rishi Sunak. Downing Street has become a “transit station”.

But the rest of Europe is equally fractured, said Pérez in El País. Since the financial crisis in 2008, there has been a “collapse” of centrist parties in Europe. France has had seven prime ministers in the past eight years, and in Germany, Friedrich Merz’s popularity is “plummeting” and the “grand coalition is falling apart”. Further afield, the US’ “politics are a mess”.

Is the future brighter with Burnham?

The “charismatic” Burnham is a “rising star”, with “decades of experience in national and regional politics”, said DW. And he is perhaps the “last hope to counter the rising right-wing populists of Reform UK”.

The new MP for Makerfield provides a “glimmer of hope” for the UK, said Pérez in El País, not least because he is in favour of “resetting the relationship with the EU”. That is the “greatest reform this country needs”. It has been “plagued by a nauseating post-imperial nostalgia, an epidemic of fear, and a mediocre political class that has been hitting rock bottom for almost 20 years”.

Burnham “may well prove a more skilled rider”, said The Washington Post. But each of the last six prime ministers “arrived promising to be the exception to the merry-go-round of predecessors and unquenchable voter rage”. And he “won’t have much time to figure it out”.

What happened

Former Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has emerged as the likely successor to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who announced his resignation Monday amid a revolt inside his Labour Party triggered by falling poll numbers and substantial losses in local elections last month. Burnham, who won a seat in Parliament in a special election last week, announced he would run for Labour leader before being sworn in.

Who said what

Starmer’s resignation “could have triggered a divisive leadership contest, but several Labour lawmakers said they now expected more of a coronation,” Reuters said. Burnham, 56, quickly “won the support of another potential leadership rival,” ​former Health Minister Wes Streeting, and no other potential candidates stepped forward. Following an “extraordinary month of deft political maneuvering,” Burnham “was treated like a celebrity” when he arrived at Parliament, with “television crews filming his arrival from helicopters,” The New York Times said.

What next?

Starmer will stay on as caretaker prime minister until Labour picks a new leader, a process starting with nominations opening July 9. If there’s a contest, the “election would likely drag on into September,” The Associated Press said. If it’s a “coronation,” Reuters said, Burnham could “enter office by mid-July.”

Andy Burnham appears to be heading to No. 10 unopposed after Keir Starmer resigned on Monday and his main leadership rival rowed in behind him.

With the new PM set to be in place by the time Parliament returns from summer recess at the start of September, attention is already turning to who the key players could be in a Burnham government, and what their appointment says for its likely direction.

Ed Miliband

The energy secretary and former Labour leader has long coveted the role of chancellor and had been widely seen as the frontrunner to replace Rachel Reeves. He has been a “key champion of Burnham with the parliamentary party and shares the same desire for Labour to enact more radical change, from tax overhaul to public control of utilities”, said The Guardian.

Yet Miliband’s opposition to further North Sea oil and gas licences and strict adherence to net zero commitments, even as energy bills have rocketed, has made him increasingly unpopular with the trade unions and wider public.

Burnham “may have cooled on the idea” of appointing Miliband to the Treasury, said The i Paper, but expect him to get another big position in government even if he misses out on his dream job.

Wes Streeting

Another name being touted as a potential chancellor is one-time PM leadership rival Wes Streeting. The former health secretary, who resigned from Cabinet last month, has withdrawn from the leadership contest and decided to back Burnham, saying on X that the new MP for Makerfield is “committed to building an inclusive party that draws on the best of our political traditions”.

One of Labour’s best communicators, with a compelling personal story, but hailing from the right of the party, his appointment as chancellor or to another top Cabinet job could “align the competing wings of the party” and “show – or at least give the impression – that Labour is more united than voters think”, said Mauricio Alencar, politics and economics reporter for City A.M.

Louise Haigh

The former transport secretary was forced to quit just months after Labour took office in 2024 over a prior fraud conviction, but has now emerged as a “crucial power broker” on the backbenches for the party’s “soft left”, said BBC chief political correspondent Henry Zeffman.

She was “at the heart of the huge rebellion which scuppered the government’s welfare cuts in 2025”, led Burnham’s Makerfield by-election campaign, and is “in line for a big cabinet job”.

Miatta Fahnbulleh

The MP for Peckham has been one of Burnham’s most vocal supporters in Parliament. A former civil servant who ran the left-wing New Economics Foundation think tank, Fahnbulleh resigned as a junior minister for communities in the aftermath of the May local elections.

Hailing from the Labour left, she has “thrown her weight behind a number of highly controversial economic policies including imposing a wealth tax, nationalising several public companies across water and transport, rolling out further green financing and taxing other streams of income more”, said Alencar. Understood to be helping Burnham work on policy, she is a “rising star” in the party and has even been touted as a dark-horse bet for chancellor, in what would be a “radical break from Starmer’s premiership”.

Anneliese Midgley

Relatively unknown outside Labour circles, Midgley was elected MP for Knowsley, near Makerfield, only in 2024 but has been an “influential force in the Labour movement for much longer than that”, said Zeffman. She worked for both Keir Starmer and Jeremy Corbyn in opposition and before that at the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and Unite.

She is seen as a “plausible candidate” for chief whip or even political secretary in Downing Street, “not a job usually held by an elected politician”.

Keir Starmer announced his resignation this morning, saying he had heard the answer to the question as to whether he was the right person to lead Labour into the next election and would “accept that answer with good grace”.

The pathway from landslide electoral victory in 2024 to candidate for most unpopular prime minister of all time must be “one of the shortest honeymoon periods in British political history”, said Becky Morton and Brian Wheeler on the BBC.

What did the commentators say?

Shortly after becoming prime minister, Starmer boasted “that there would never be such a thing as Starmerism”, said Morton and Wheeler. But what he saw as a lack of ideological baggage ultimately translated – in the eyes of the public and many within his own party – to a perception that the prime minister “was, simply, not very good at politics”.

“There is something lame about him that Starmer has struggled from the start to shrug off,” said Ameer Kotecha in The Spectator. His lack of charisma was sold as a sign of the dutiful competence that was supposed to distinguish him from the perceived frivolity of the Liz Truss and Boris Johnson eras. But over the course of his premiership, the Starmer who has emerged “appears constantly at the mercy of events”, his occasional moments of “startling ruthlessness” somehow “even more unattractive than his mere ineptitude”.

Starmer “arrived for a career in politics unprepared for what a career in politics actually means”, said Andrew Marr in The New Statesman. The former director of public prosecutions went from courtroom to “cage fight”, and never managed to sell himself or his messaging “in a raucous, jeering environment where many assumed he was a compulsive liar”. In taking on the premiership of a fractured, stagnating Britain, he “chose a painful, treacherous path at an unusually difficult time”. If it “hasn’t worked”, it is “by no means all his fault”.

What next?

“The beneficiary of Starmer’s demise is all but certain to be Andy Burnham,” said Sonia Sodha in The Times. Burnham is “a warm and effective communicator” – but he must use that charisma to “strike a realistically ambitious tone” and sell the public on “hard truths” about the road ahead, rather than quick-fix solutions whose inevitable failure will only benefit populist parties.

A Burnham administration “will test the power of personality over policy”, said The New York Times. His allies pin their hopes on his talents as “an effective storyteller who can counter the inflammatory rhetoric of populist rivals” in a way that always eluded Starmer. But so far his vision for the nation has been confined to “sweeping generalities” that offer little insight into how he will address huge challenges like “economic stagnation”, public sector funding and “ascendant, anti-immigrant populism”.

Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, said the picture for Labour has become so “bleak” that most party insiders will be happy if Burnham can simply “persuade people to give the party a second look”. But “if the sausage isn’t going to change, when it comes down to it, all he’s really offering is some sizzle”.

Bruising brushes with financial markets have been the fate of Labour “down the ages”, said William Keegan in The Observer. Back in the 1960s, Harold Wilson complained about “the gnomes of Zürich” – a derogatory reference to international bankers then going “short on the pound”. This time, the threat is closer to home – in London’s febrile government bond markets.

‘The risk of some kind of accident is real’

Before this week’s escalation of the leadership fight, economists were playing down the political angle. “For all the noise, politics isn’t what’s driving yields higher right now,” James Smith of ING told The Times. “The overwhelming driver is still the energy crisis, oil prices and the impact on BoE interest rates.” But as a dramatic sell-off got under way, it became harder to discount the sense that debt markets are indeed badly rattled by Labour’s leadership woes. The 30-year gilt yield, which hit 5.81% on Tuesday, is at the highest this century. Yields on 10-year gilts (the benchmark for mortgage rates), at 5.13%, are at their highest since 2008.

It’s “a rubbish time” to be having a political crisis, said Daire MacFadden in the Financial Times. “Sadly, that’s precisely what we have.” Any leadership challenge is “all but certain to herald a move to the left and potentially an increase in government borrowing”. To some extent, the gilt market had already priced this in, but “the risk of some kind of accident here is real”.

It doesn’t help that Andy Burnham – who last year observed that government shouldn’t be “in hock” to the bond market – “keeps talking about bond markets as if they are some sort of entity he can bamboozle with jargon”, said John Stepek on Bloomberg. The view from his camp seems to be that renationalising various sectors of the economy will inherently make them more productive – so gilt markets “will be happy to fund the borrowing”. That’s a somewhat “courageous” assumption.

‘Bond vigilantes’ on the rise

“It seems like the only supporters that Keir Starmer has left are the so-called bond vigilantes,” said Robin Wigglesworth in the FT. As they point out, higher borrowing costs are already chipping away at the chancellor’s £24 billion of fiscal headroom, which forecasts suggest could halve. But for how long “can the gilt market act as the UK’s political police”?

Among Starmer’s rivals, Burnham is perceived by traders as the biggest threat and Wes Streeting as the least risky. We must hope he prevails and persuades investors to lend at “a lower premium” to Britain, said Adam Smith in The Telegraph.

The “intriguing paradox” of Labour politics is that the leader most distrusted by the Left may ultimately be the “most capable of financing the expansive social-democratic state that they all crave”.

Wes Streeting, who quit as health secretary yesterday, has endorsed Andy Burnham as having the “best chance of winning” the Makerfield by-election. That fact should “override factional advantage or propping up one person”, Streeting said on X.

Pending approval from Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee, Burnham is set to stand in the northwest constituency, providing him with the chance to return to Parliament and challenge for the party leadership.

But with rising support for Reform UK in the region, and Labour plummeting in the polls, this will not be easy. How this by-election plays out “could decide the future direction of the country”, said the Manchester Evening News.

What did the commentators say?

Burnham contesting a seat vacated by Josh Simons, former chair of the Labour Together think tank, was “not high on my bingo card for this year”, said Ben Walker in The New Statesman. “Yet the logic behind the move is clear.” It is clearly “a pitch for prime minister”.

But Burnham’s return to Westminster is a “difficult proposition”, if the recent by-election in Gorton and Denton is anything to go by. “Yet, to state the obvious, this would be no ordinary by-election.” Makerfield is a “very different” constituency, and though it is only a “railway line away from Gorton, politically and culturally it is another world entirely”.

Taking into account Burnham’s popularity having been mayor of Greater Manchester since 2017, and exit-poll data from the Gorton and Denton contest, Britain Predicts forecasts a Labour hold, but “only narrowly”, by three points ahead of Reform. Whatever the result, the Makerfield by-election could be “one of the most totemic and decisive” in modern British history.

This is a “high-stakes gamble for everyone involved”, said Tim Shipman in The Spectator. “But then, in Labour politics right now, everything is.” The Makerfield seat is far from safe, despite being held by Labour since it was created in 1983. Simons won with a “majority of only around 6,000 over Reform” in 2024.

Nigel Farage’s party will contest the seat “with all guns blazing” and would be wise to select a “hyper local” ex-Labour supporter to stand, depicting Burnham as a “carpetbagger” who “takes your vote for granted”. With Keir Starmer unlikely to block Burnham standing, as he did in Gorton and Denton, the PM’s position is now “somewhat in the hands of Farage”.

A lot rests on Burnham’s “personal popularity” to get him over the line, said Ollie Corfe in The Telegraph. A YouGov poll this month shows his +4% net favourability score as the only positive rating of any senior Westminster politician (Starmer -46%, Angela Rayner -33% and Streeting -28%).

He will have to combat the disintegrating “Red Wall” in the northwest, where Labour has just lost 372 councillors, while Reform gained more than 400. Neighbouring St Helens saw one of the “most dramatic results” in the entire local elections, with Reform winning 71% of all seats.

The path to Westminster is a “route paved with thorns” that might yet end with the mayor of Greater Manchester’s “hopes in tatters”, said Stephen Bush in the Financial Times. And for Labour, the “stakes could not be higher”.

If Burnham does win, his reputation as a slayer of Reform would “only be enhanced”, and “his march to the leadership he has coveted for so long would then surely be unstoppable”. But if he loses to a Reform candidate, the public will question whether any Labour candidate can win. “Burnham’s defeat would secure Starmer as prime minister: but it could well confirm that he is on course to be Labour’s last prime minister.”

What next?

For the by-election to go ahead, several processes need to happen, said Jamie Grierson in The Guardian. By convention, the Labour chief whip – currently Jonathan Reynolds – will start the process by “moving the writ”, formally asking Parliament to start the election process. Once the writ has been moved, a by-election must take place between 21 and 27 working days later, and usually held on a Thursday.

This should take “about five to six weeks”, said The Guardian, which means the earliest Burnham could return to Westminster, if he wins, would be “early July”. Once achieved, “he could trigger a leadership contest, which he would be expected to win, potentially unchallenged”.

Andy Burnham might be the bookmakers’ favourite to replace Keir Starmer as Labour leader, despite his lack of a Westminster seat, but he certainly isn’t the bond market’s favourite.

In fact, gilt traders see the Greater Manchester mayor as the “biggest threat” of all the potential candidates, said the Financial Times. He troubled investors last year when he suggested the country should not be “in hock” to the bond market. Six out of 10 fund managers picked Burnham as the candidate that would “trigger the most negative market reaction”.

Burnham has said his comments on the bond market were misinterpreted, but the political project he espouses and the vision he offers for the country’s future – Manchesterism – remains highly divisive. Critics see it as “mostly vibes and boosterism” that “relies on a bottom-up localism” difficult to scale at a national level, said PoliticsHome. Others see it as our potential economic and political saviour.

What did the commentators say?

Manchesterism is a “horrifically overused phrase” about how my city “does things differently”, said Stephen Topping in the Manchester Evening News. But it’s true. Manchesterism is “‘place-based’ rather than party political”. It involves “public services working closer together, and in partnership with both the private sector and community groups, to ensure the benefits of a stronger economy can be felt by more people”.

The Greater Manchester region has become the UK’s fastest growing economy over the past decade, “at more than double the rate of the national average”. Devolution has been critical: the “trailblazer” deal struck in 2023 has allowed Greater Manchester to “take public control of key services” such as the bus network, which has improved living standards and boosted the local economy. Those who have worked closely with Burnham believe Manchesterism “could work in other parts of the UK”, though it would pose “a radical departure from the UK’s largely centralised economy”.

Burnham’s programme has begun “delivering affordability and economic dynamism” by “regaining public control” of essential services, said Mathew Lawrence, director of progressive think tank Common Wealth, in The New Statesman.

Energy, water, housing, transport and care are “domains of inelastic demand” and “existential need”. So market governance of the supply side “produces rent extraction” and underinvestment. The public “pays twice: through higher bills” and taxes to fund support. But public control of essentials eliminates the privatisation premium. “Rebuilding public provision is not the alternative to fiscal prudence. It is fiscal prudence.”

Manchesterism might be the “buzzword of the day”, but it’s simply people projecting their “pipe dreams” on to Burnham’s “blank canvas of soft-left localism”, said Daniel Johnson in The Telegraph.

“The irony is that 19th-century Manchesterism was more or less the opposite of what the Labour Party now thinks it means.” Manchester was “both the laboratory and the showcase of the Industrial Revolution”, the “citadel of free trade”. It had nothing to do with Burnham’s “municipal socialism”. His proposed solution to Britain’s economic woes is “a muddled melange of municipal meddling, including tax hikes and more borrowing”. What Britain needs is the 19th-century version, which Burnham doesn’t understand.

The vision of Manchesterism Burnham outlined in January is, in practice, an industrial strategy – and there is “nothing new about those”, said Christopher Snowdon in The Critic. Economists have long criticised them for “misallocating resources, crowding out private investment, picking losers, and forcing taxpayers to bail out industries that are only kept on life support for political reasons”. How, exactly, can Manchesterism “stop us being in hock to the bond markets” when Manchester City Council is “one of the most indebted in the country”.

What next?

Burnham is planning to reassure the bond market that his possible election to Labour leader would “not trigger a financial meltdown”, said The Telegraph. Sources say he is planning to endorse a pamphlet outlining a framework for Manchesterism, setting out how it could be rolled out across the UK and “the wider economic theory behind his ideas”.

But the uncertain national landscape, in which voters are moving both further left and further right, could make the success of Manchesterism “a challenge for anybody”, Sarah Longlands, chief executive of the Manchester-based Centre for Local Economic Strategies, told Manchester Evening News.

Manchesterism is still in its early stages, yet for all the benefits devolution has brought, Greater Manchester is still “a tale of two cities”, with a great income and opportunities divide exacerbated by the cost of living crisis. “Growth in Greater Manchester has to be for everybody – otherwise, what’s the point?” Longlands said.

“Labour has gone from its loveless landslide to having no political heartland in the UK to call its own,” said Adam Boulton in The i Paper.

Reform UK has made sweeping gains across England in the local elections, while the SNP is likely to be the largest party in Scotland. Labour has already admitted it is not going to form the next government in Wales.

Keir Starmer has declared he is “not going to walk away and plunge the country into chaos”. However, amid rumours of challenges from former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham, Labour’s poor performance in the local elections could prove the tipping point for the PM.

What did the commentators say?

“Kingmaker” Ed Miliband has reportedly privately suggested to Starmer he should set out a “timeline for his departure” after the results, said Steven Swinford in The Times. Though the former party leader is “supportive” of Starmer, he is worried that Labour may “descend into a bitter and damaging leadership contest”.

Both Rayner and Streeting are thought to have the support of the 81 Labour MPs needed to “trigger a contest”. Rayner reportedly does not see the ongoing HMRC investigation into her tax affairs as a “barrier to putting herself forward”. Burnham has also “emerged as the preferred candidate of powerbrokers on Labour’s soft left”. They believe an “orderly transition to his leadership over a period of months is the only way to avert a bloody civil war”, with reports of a backbench MP standing down to accommodate his return to Westminster.

Indeed, it may appear an “obvious conclusion” – that changing the leader would make its problems “go away”, said Boulton. “Obvious but wrong.” Inexperienced Labour MPs – “more than half” of whom were first elected in 2024 – had “supped full on the bloodshed” of five axed Conservative leaders before the general election. But they “failed to notice that such a butcher’s bill did not ultimately improve the Tories’ fortunes”. The reality is they have a “poor leader who has led them into an electoral catastrophe, but without him, things could always get worse”.

Starmer may be on the end of one of the party’s “worst set of election results in history”, but he may “take solace” in his potential challengers also “facing heavy losses in their own patch”, said Kiran Stacey in The Guardian. Labour lost control of Tameside in Greater Manchester, Rayner’s local council, and “struggled” across the northwest, impacting Burnham. Experts also expect Labour to “do badly” in Streeting’s home council of Redbridge in northeast London.

Labour MPs will have a “terrible sinking feeling”, said political strategist James Frayne in The Telegraph. They won’t know which way to turn, but the “great risk” for them is “looking like they’re part of the problem”. Staying silent implies a weakened party is becoming more divided, but appearing to “trot” out excuses for Starmer “risks downplaying the prospect of a straightforward Farage majority at the next election. That’s not a risk that anyone with any hope of a future in the Labour Party can take.”

It is “hard to deny” that Starmer’s days are “numbered”, said Simon Walters in The Independent. But the question remains: “how is any replacement going to make things better for Labour?” Starmer “may not set the pulse racing” but he is “decent and honest”, as well as making the right calls over Iran, and “standing up to Donald Trump with courage and quiet dignity”. Until someone raises “convincing solutions” to current issues, those who are “indulging in a petty blame game” in Westminster “should be careful what they wish for”.

What next?

Votes were still being counted, but the Labour “post-mortem” had already begun, said Ethan Croft in The New Statesman. Amid the “necessary evasions and sugar-coating of damage control”, there are “hard-headed calculations” about which direction the party should turn. Over the next few days expect everyone on the Labour left and right to use the results to “validate what they already believed”, and to “argue for policies and strategies they were already advocating for the party’s future”.

Those on Labour’s right are “confident” the results “vindicate” Shabana Mahmood’s “hardline” stance on immigration, believing the party must do more to “neutralise” Reform on Labour’s own terms. Those on the left of the party, however, think this is “precisely the consequence of pursuing that brand of politics”, and is also why they are being “walloped” by the Greens.

Andy Burnham has made no secret of his desire to one day lead the Labour Party. The mayor of Greater Manchester has twice run for the leadership – in 2010 and 2015 – and just two years ago reaffirmed his aspirations for the top job, telling The Telegraph: “If the party thinks well maybe it is your time, I wouldn’t turn away from that.”

That naked ambition “has always made him an anxiety-inducing blot on the landscape for the incumbent leader”, said The Guardian, “but the road to No. 10 is a very difficult one”. Burnham may have a vision for his path to the leadership – “but he doesn’t have complete control of how to make it a reality”.

What did the commentators say?

After a disastrous two weeks, “Starmer’s premiership is on its knees”, said Kitty Donaldson in The i Paper, “with his own internal critics now publicly putting a timeline on how long it can last”. Some are warning he could be ousted after May’s elections.

The “despondent mood among his MPs isn’t limited to his left-wing critics”. Mainstream figures and grassroots Labourites are “questioning whether the chaotic departures of Angela Rayner and Peter Mandelson are fundamental markers of Starmer’s political judgement, his vision for the country, and even his basic competence”.

By contrast, Burnham has been consistently chosen as the next PM in polls of Labour members and his appeal extends to voters who backed Labour in the last general election. Last week, the man dubbed “the King in the North” by supporters launched a new soft-left campaign group, Mainstream, which “many expect to become a Trojan horse for a leadership bid”, said The Telegraph.

Backing calls for wealth taxes, nationalising utility companies and ending the two-child benefit cap, Burnham “would want to lead a government with a strikingly different tone – more sympathetic to dissent, more open to the Liberal Democrats and to the Green Party – a soft-left administration with strong appeal to many Labour members”, that would also be “better at combating Reform”, said The New Statesman’s Andrew Marr.

He has already called for a “reset” at the Labour conference later this month, and No. 10 is “braced for Burnham to pop up in Liverpool as a rallying point for a change of direction”, said Donaldson.

What next?

Under current rules, 20% of the parliamentary party (80 MPs) would be required to challenge Starmer by nominating an alternative candidate, “and it’s far from agreed who that could be”, said Politico.

Burnham faces an even greater obstacle than most candidates as he would first need to fight and win a parliamentary seat in order to stand in any future leadership race. One obvious option would be Gorton and Denton in south Manchester, where suspended Labour MP Andrew Gwynne has applied to retire on medical grounds. But that seat, along with many in and around Manchester, is vulnerable to Reform, according to the latest forecast from Election Maps UK.

“The harsh reality is that there is no realistic route for him to become leader” in the near future and attempting to do so could “hand Farage a huge opportunity in a genuine showdown”, said The Independent. “Even if the Labour Party needs saving, trying to bring back Andy Burnham would be a gamble too far.”

1. Hear me out – Andy Burnham is Labour’s Boris Johnson

Marie le Conte in The Independent

on a leadership contender

“What or who comes to mind when you think of Andy Burnham? Do you think of the north of England? ‘Twenty-four hours to save the NHS’? Biscuits and gravy, perhaps? How about Boris Johnson?” writes Marie Le Conte in The Independent. It seems possible that Burnham, a former Labour frontbencher turned “King in the North” as Manchester’s metro mayor, could “do a Boris and triumphantly return to Westminster to save his party from ruin”, suggests Le Conte. Indeed, “the mere fact that it is a possibility points to quite a fundamental shift in British politics”, she writes. Seeing as “politicians old and new have the possibility now to run as metro mayors in England, parliament no longer has to be the place in which future leaders are made”. She concludes: “Andy Burnham is not Boris Johnson, but he clearly hopes to have a similar journey. If he manages it, others may well decide to try and follow suit. Can Westminster handle it?”

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2. Must I take personal responsibility for you?

Hugo Rifkind in The Times

on mask wearing

“When we speak of personal responsibility in the age of Covid, we are actually talking about two very different things,” writes Hugo Rifkind in The Times. “The first is responsibility for ourselves, and the second is for everybody else. Remarkably, quite a lot of people seem yet to comprehend the distinction,” he continues. “Your hardcore mask refusers may choose to style themselves as akin to 1930s German Jews refusing to wear yellow stars, but for many of us they have actually more closely resembled those American libertarian gun nuts who make a point of wearing an assault rifle strapped across their chests at the Walmart cheese counter,” he writes. “As in, it is not, and has never been, only about you.”

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3. You really need to quit Twitter

Caitlin Flanagan in The Atlantic

on a modern addiction

“I know I’m an addict because Twitter hacked itself so deep into my circuitry that it interrupted the very formation of my thoughts,” writes Caitlin Flanagan in The Atlantic. “Every thought, every experience, seems to be reducible to this haiku,” she writes, “destroying my ability for private thought, sucking up all my talent and wit. Put it out there, post it, see how it does,” she continues. Indeed, “the simplest definition of an addiction is a habit that you can’t quit, even though it poses obvious danger. How many people have lost their jobs over ill-considered tweets? How can a wry observation, unexamined and fired off during an adrenaline high, possibly be worth the risk? It’s madness.” A month into a self-imposed Twitter ban it’s clear how “pathetically simple” human psychology is to manipulate. “Once you’re hooked, the parasite becomes your master, and it changes the way you think. Even now, I’m dopesick, dying to go back.”

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4. Priti Patel rattles the handcuffs – but the Tories have lost control of law and order

Polly Toynbee in The Guardian

on British justice

“Justice is grinding to a halt. The handcuff-rattling home secretary, Priti Patel, likes announcing draconian new sentences – but without adequate police, prisons and, above all, law courts to hear cases, her bombast is empty,” writes Polly Toynbee in The Guardian. “Court delays deny justice to victims, to witnesses fast forgetting what they saw, to the guilty who should face consequences quickly, to the innocent wrongly locked up on remand or with a cloud hanging over them,” and the pandemic has simply “worsened an existing crisis: there was a 37,000 crown court backlog in 2019”, writes Toynbee. “All this makes law-and-order Tories vulnerable, with concerns about crime raised in recent byelections. All civilisation rests on trust in the law,” she continues. “It’s time for Labour to abandon squeamishness about anything that smacks of tough-talk crowd-pleasing: this government’s dereliction of duty undermines the bedrock assumptions of any decent society.”

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5. The terrifying truth is that millions do not want lockdown ever to end

Sherelle Jacobs in The Telegraph

on a new culture war

“[A] depressing truth looms over Britain: many people do not seem to want restrictions to end,” writes Sherelle Jacobs in The Telegraph. “Millions have become attached to the gilded trappings of lockdown, from furlough to flexi-home working. With our every movement micromanaged by one metre signage and one-way arrows, our instincts for independent self-direction have shrivelled. And after nearly 18 months of relentless – and irresponsible – anti-Covid messaging, terror of the virus is still everywhere.” So, says Jacobs, “a nasty culture war is brewing, a modern twist on the old feud between positive and negative liberty”. And face masks look like they will provide the ammunition. “What should have been a matter for personal choice, based on mutual respect, is gearing up to become a sort of tribal signal,” she writes. “We are starting to see now that commitment to the value of individual freedom, far from being robust as a coil spring, is fragile as glass.”

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