Sir Alec Burnham Douglas-Home ...

The Labour Party plans to dump Starmer after the disastrous local election results but they don't want him to go but "set a timetable for his departure" in the style of Tony Blair.  The main reason is to engage in the crackpot scheme of bringing Andy Burnham the Mayor of Manchester into Parliament to become the new Prime Minister that the left desire.  There are 411 Labour MPs but apparently that's not enough to pick a new leader from.  The answer is from outside.  

The closest historical parallel to this that I can think of to this situation is when in the wake of the Profumo scandal and the fall of the MacMillan government, Lord Alec Douglas-Home resigned from the Lords using the mechanisms recently set up by Tony Benn and was parachuted into the Commons so he could become the next Conservative Prime Minister.  Interestingly there were 23 days shortly after the Queen appointing him between Air Alec resigning from the Lords and being elected to the Commons again during which time the UK Prime Minister was not in Parliament at all.  None of these potentially unconstitutional shenanigans saved the Conservatives from electoral wipeout by Harold Wilson less than a year later and I'm not convinced the bold Burnham experiment will provide an instant escape from the electoral snake pit situation either.

However bonkers the Alec Douglas-Home situation might seem to us sixty years later, at least Home was the Foreign Secretary in Macmillan's government so although it was an unusual situation it wasn't completely left-field if you'll excuse the pun.  Home as a hereditary Lord was banned from standing from the Commons.  Wilson attacked him as the 14th Earl to which Sir Douglas-Home memorably if you disregard the fact that everyone has forgotten it responded that Mr Wilson was in fact probably the 14th Mr Wilson.  If it's one thing Sir Keir's premiership has achieved it's the final end of hereditary peers.  I did enjoy the recent obligatory piece about peers who felt very hurt at being thrown out of the Lords yesterday in the Telegraph though... Diddums... Anyway... Sir Alec's appointment was also controversial because the 1922 Committee did not chose the PM in those days and with the government unable to agree on Macmillan's successor he was seen as the result of a grubby deal between some Tory grandees, had-been-SuperMac and the Queen herself who unsurprisingly seemed to favour a Lord over another commoner...

Anyway, all this may seem by-the-by but it's the only example I can think of ... Of a non MP being parachuted in as PM in recent history... Let us now look at the obstacles to be surmounted in a similar machination by Mr Burnham.  They are if anything even more difficult to vault.  First he must find a Labour MP with a stonking majority to resign.  Who is this valiant Turkey who will vote for Christmas and where is he or she to be found within the Labour PLP?  Are they going to draw lots?  Then he must the get selected by the outgoing MP's CLP.  That isn't as easy as you might think.  They may go for a local candidate instead.  The last CLP selection I went to, the front runner was defeated by local outsider Sarah Jones by literally 1 vote.  In those days selections used to be done at an in person meeting.  Now they are done partially online resulting in potential fraud.  There's still an ongoing police investigation into one Croydon selection where membership details were leaked early.  Anyway, as well as being endorsed by the CLP, he'd have to be endorsed by the NEC which is stuffed with Starmer's mates.  He'd then have to get elected which his supporters seem to regard as a cake-walk but is by no means guaranteed given the Tories, Lib Dems, Reform (and possibly the Greens) will all no doubt throw the kitchen sink into beating him ... Flooding the Constituency with bus loads of activists as the event turns into a media circus.  All this is before the Labour Party has even started it's internal election campaign with hustings and balloting all the members.  Now if Sir Keir resigns to facilitate all this... Well, when there isn't an actual sitting Labour Party leader under the party rulebook the role should go to deputy leader who is Lucy Powell.  This situation happened several times when Labour was in opposition with Harriet Harman having to stand in whilst the men sorted it all out amongst themselves.  So would Lucy become temporary stand-in PM? The only case when This didn't happen in recent memory was when Corbyn decided to actively fight a leadership bid - since he didn't step down as Leader he remained Leader of the Opposition.  But if Starmer sets a "timetable for departure" is he really still leading? Shouldn't Lucy then take over under the Labour Party Rulebook?  This situation was avoided during the Blair-Brown switchover by effectively bullying other candidates out of the race to create a coronation.  A formal leadership ballot was never undertaken so John Prescott did not need to be called in...

Would a Wes Streeting or Andy Burnham Coronation be acceptable to anyone?

Now all of this technical detail is just that.  By now you're probably thinking what do I actually think of Andy Burnham? Well, I remember him at the 2010 hustings for Labour Leader.  He came last.  Unsurprisingly since he was the most wooden performer.  David Miliband was very amusing satirising Peter Mandelson's then new autobiography advert, Ed was okay.  Ed Balls was ... Ed Balls ... Diane Abbot was the token lady.  Andy's campaign was conducted driving around the country in a minibus which lacked a certain glamour but was interesting as regards his later bus related policies... But anyway he seemed like the nice guy who came last or became Mayor Of Manchester...

Now doubtless he's improved in the past 16 years but I find it very hard to believe in Andy Burnham as the saviour of the Labour Party.  That's not to say he wouldn't be a good Prime Minister or leader but it seems to me that like Alec Douglas-Home he seems to represent the seeking of answers from the outside and I don't think the 411 Labour MPs need to go as far as Manchester to find the answers to their problems.  Perhaps the answer is actually as simple as listening to your constituents?  Instead of following along blindly behind such bonkers toxic policies as the abolition of Jury Trials or abolishing the winter fuel allowance.  All self inflicted injuries from the party that has lost it's soul.   Labour has lost the anti-Palestine Genocide vote to the Greens on the left and the anti-Immigration control vote on the right to Reform.  They appear to stand for nothing.  Don't vote Reform because they'll bring in dictatorship?  What is the abolition of Jury Trials? As we've seen in the US Juries are one of the few institutions able to hold would-be dictators like Donald Trump to account?  The splintering of the vote amongst so many parties represents voters feeling there are no good choices ... also a lot more people have cottoned onto the fact tactical voting is actually a trap designed by the two major parties to keep power to themselves...

For all his faults and war crimes, one of the strengths of Tony Blair is he sought to build a broad coalition.  Contrastingly Starmer expelled loads of people from the party for spurious reasons.  Our local CLP Secretary was thrown out due to an "anti-Semitic" tweet.  He was later cleared but took late.  The bridge is burned.  He works for the Greens now ... "If you don't like it leave" seemed to be Keir's attitude.  People did.