@TrisOsborneMP@Vicgoch@UKLabour@Keir_Starmer Well done to you and your colleagues 🙏👏 I’ve been following UK 🇬🇧 politics for 50 years and I’ve never seen a government delivering their pledges at such pace and across the board….keep going and public support will grow 🙏
@andy4makerfield I will never vote for a backstabber. How dare you highjack Starmer’s leadership, when he did all the hard work. At best you’re a mediocre politician. Starmer is a statesman.
Listening to Neil Duncan Jordan highlights precisely what appears to be happening within sections of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Individual MPs inevitably view events through the prism of their own political beliefs, alliances and experiences. There is nothing unusual about that.
What seems to be overlooked, however, is that Labour MPs do not own the party. They are part of it. While their views may carry weight in Westminster, they do not possess some special democratic authority when it comes to determining the future direction of Labour.
If there were ever to be a leadership contest, it would not simply be decided by conversations taking place within the Parliamentary Labour Party. It would be decided by the wider Labour movement and, crucially, by Labour Party members themselves. An MP's preference remains exactly that: a preference. It is not a casting vote, nor is it inherently more important than the views of the members who campaign for the party, support it financially and sustain it between elections.
That is why some MPs may be making a significant miscalculation. By listening primarily to voices within Westminster, they risk convincing themselves that they are reflecting the mood of the party when they may only be reflecting the mood of a particular section of it.
Should a leadership contest ever arise, they may discover that the grassroots membership has reached very different conclusions about what has happened, who is responsible for it, and what direction the party should take next.
The real question is not what a particular group of MPs thinks. It is whether Labour members believe that a government elected with a substantial majority should be given the opportunity to complete the programme upon which it was elected before sections of the party begin arguing for a change of leadership.
Whilst I have little sympathy for the Reform candidate politically, he does raise a fair point. This by election is clearly about more than representing Makerfield. It is Andy Burnham's route back into the Parliamentary Labour Party and potentially a future leadership challenge to Sir Keir Starmer.
What struck me was Burnham's response. He appeared caught off guard by the question and instead fell back on listing things he had done as an MP. That was not really the point being made. The issue is not what he did in the past, but what his intentions are now.
Voters are entitled to ask whether Makerfield is being asked to choose a constituency MP or provide a platform for someone's next political ambition.
Delighted that St Bede's Catholic School and Sixth Form College have now had new solar panels installed by Great British Energy. This will save the school £630,000 over the course of the life of the panels and means that money can be reinvested into education. Great news!
Like clockwork, the “I said those things before I went into politics” bullshit.
The fact you even thought them says you are a massive wrong ‘un you plonker 😂
Elon Musk has clearly been a threat to democracy in the UK for some time, his algorithm is like a virus at the heart of our body politik, so the PM’s criticism of him is well merited.
We ARE a reasonable and tolerant country. Let's not allow the noisy hateful few convince us we are not. We stand up to bullies and to those seeking to cause division. This makes me proud to be British. It is sad, however, that we need to remind some people of this.
Reform scrapping their climate commitments and getting rid of net zero is more than an ideological choice.
Do they not care about our environment, or about local jobs and investment?
Or do they not understand that amateurish political stunts have consequences?