Ali Harvey

Love nature, RSPB, folk music, my menagerie at home and living 15 foot from the sea - till a very high tide or storm force winds!!! :-D

[Ali Bond ♀️🟪⬜🟩 @AlisonEBond]

I am appalled by the triumphalism of Burnham and the PLP shown in that photograph taken in Parliament today. Supporting Burnham's coup in the place that symbolises our democracy. They look just look like the foot soldiers of a insurgent commander. Utterly, utterly disgusting.

[Politics UK @PolitlcsUK]

🚨 WATCH: Andy Burnham is called a "traitor" as he arrives into Parliament

[The Last Blairite #TrueLabour @LastBlairite]

This is shameful from every single Labour MP, pissing about like this on the day the first Labour PM in 14 years stands down. Totally lacking class. Could’ve waited a day for such nonsense. I can see my MP on there and I’m embarrassed.

[Kevin Schofield @KevinASchofield]

Senior Labour source: “Andy has started a coup against Keir and then demanded Keir slow down the coup until such a time as Andy knows what he’s doing.”

[Patrick Christys @PatrickChristys]

Look at them all, grinning as they parachute in a bloke who has tried and failed to be Labour leader twice, who won a manufactured by-election and will now become PM unopposed so he can avoid all scrutiny of what he actually stands for. Risible.

[Patrina Finch #FBPE @Siege_Perilous]

Dear @AndyBurnhamGM. I've cancelled my @uklabour Party membership today thanks to you. You've made sure the Party will remain unelectable for more than the 14 it took to get back into power. That's how ur treachery will be rewarded. So enjoy ur smugness for this short period

[JennyPence 🌹 @JennyEPence]

Many Labour Party members are devastated today.

Complete lack of self awareness from this egotistical charlatan.

[MARK A IZATT @markaizatt]

I don’t think they’ve considered, for a second, how disconnected from the electorate this little tableaux is - complete with the Chancellor in shot, vying for a job no doubt.

It’s also, classless, only a few hours after their leader and PM fell on his sword.

This won’t end well.

[Dr Shama Junejo @ShamaJunejo]

@AndyBurnhamGM Bro, I have saved this tweet since 2016. Don’t delete it ever.

[Andy Burnham @AndyBurnhamGM]

I have never taken part in a coup against any Leader of the Labour Party and I am not going to start now. 2/3

[Damian Low @DamianLow3]

Seeing some of the embarrassingly hateful reactions to Starmer's resignation today, I thought it was worth resharing this.

The level of personal hostility directed at Keir Starmer deserves scrutiny in its own right. Not because he should be immune from criticism, but because the tone and intensity of the attacks tell us something unhealthy about the state of democratic politics.

Starmer is a conventional political figure. Cautious, legalistic, incremental. He frustrates people precisely because he is managerial rather than messianic. Yet the reaction to him often goes far beyond disagreement, tipping into visceral hatred more commonly reserved for authoritarians or demagogues.

Much of this hostility is disconnected from concrete policy. It is not about specific votes, proposals or outcomes, but about projection. A belief that Starmer embodies betrayal, bad faith or hidden malice. That kind of politics runs on suspicion rather than evidence.

This matters because democracy depends on the assumption of good faith among opponents. You can think a leader is wrong, timid, or misguided without believing they are fundamentally illegitimate. Once politics becomes moralised to the point of demonisation, compromise is reframed as treachery and pluralism as weakness.

The pattern is familiar. In fragmented, polarised systems, anger concentrates not on extremists, whose intentions are clear, but on moderates, who disappoint maximalists on all sides. The centre becomes the lightning rod precisely because it resists totalising narratives.

There is also a media and online dynamic at work. Incentives reward outrage, not proportionality. Algorithms favour contempt over analysis. Over time, this creates a political culture in which relentless personal attack feels normal, even virtuous, rather than disgusting.

None of this is a defence of Starmer’s decisions, instincts or record. Those should be argued over robustly as you do in a democracy. The problem is the substitution of critique with hostility and the quiet erosion of democratic norms that follows when political opponents are treated as enemies rather than rivals.

A democracy cannot function if every election is framed as an existential struggle against internal evil. At some point, the target may change, but the damage to trust, restraint and culture remains.

[Harriet Symonds @harriet_symonds]

EXC: Labour MPs opposed to a coronation are rallying around Darren Jones to challenge Andy Burnham for the leadership

An MP organising for him tells me: ‘Lots of people are pushing Darren to stand.

There is real opposition to a coronation for someone who hasn't really said what he believes in or will do as PM’

[Narinder Kaur @narindertweets]

Hounded out by right-wing media.
He lost his brother months into his leadership and still carried on with grace.
A shameful moment in political history

[BelindaSales. @sales_belinda]

Had #Burnham got elected to be PM in the normal channels, not by begging someone to stand down, win the by-election then be ushered into no 10, then I would have stayed in the Labour party & supported him.
But I despise what he's done. I despise disloyalty. I despise Burnham.

[john eastman #Rejoin @talldogman]

Dear @UKLabour
I think you have just made a truly disastrous decision.
Starmer was PRECISELY what the uk needed for this moment in time, rebuilding from 14 years of catastrophic tory fuckwittery.

Foolish, deluded, and gutless.
You're welcome.

[Ted Smith 🇪🇺 @TedUrchin]

Do you know something?
Try as hard as I might, I cannot get beyond a feeling of great animosity towards @AndyBurnhamGM
It is so obvious to me that he and his nasty little coterie have been planning this putsch for very many months, possibly more.
Think about it:-
1 The Labour seat made vacant for him within days of the local election results.
2 The fact that his campaign was so slick, and done so quickly.
3 The fact that so many Labour MP’s supported him and with obscene alacrity.
The @UKLabour membership rejected his bid for the leadership, twice. We voted for @Keir_Starmer for leader and PM - not him.
So, the conniving little weasel has done it via the back door, and seemingly without any challenge.
Bollocks to him, I say.
Soon, this terrible mistake will become glaringly obvious. He ain’t nearly good enough, you see, and not in Starmer’s league.
#BollocksToBurnham

[Brendan May @bmay]

I find all the Labour people who helped depose Starmer queuing up to pay tribute to him and his integrity absolutely vomit-inducing.

I’m supposed to fly back to Britain from Asia tonight and it makes me feel ill.

Also, we’re about to have the most lightweight PM since Truss.

[Dan @DanLord78]

This is deeply disappointing. There is going to be serious consequences if everyone just falls into line with Andy Burnham. Leaving Labour Members shut out of the process is unacceptable. Coronations are for kings #Labourleadership

[Tom Baldwin @TomBaldwin66]

We seem to be in a strange place where Keir Starmer is being told he must quit to prevent more uncertainty and chaos (by those who have caused much of it) but then stay on for a couple of months because the guy who has been desperate to take his job is not yet ready to do so…

[Sheila @SheilaMarieF]

Incandescent with rage is an understatement. I will never forgive the players who brought down a Labour PM only two years into our first Labour government in fourteen years. Talk about being our own fucking worse enemy.