BY PAUL T HORGAN
Well, it was all over before it started. The accelerated timetable for Labour to select a candidate meant that less than a week after offensive Whatsappist Andrew Gwynne decided he had to stand down for mental health reasons as MP for Garton and Denton, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has been told not to give up the day-job that he liked so very much that he wanted to be an MP again as soon as the first possible opportunity arose.
Burnham’s letter of application to Labour’s Politburo, the National Executive Committee, is an exercise in hinting more than saying things out loud. So I have had a go at correcting this, with a simultaneous translation from what Burnham said, to what he actually meant. Enjoy.
I write to seek the permission of the NEC to enter the process for the selection of Labour’s candidate for the forthcoming Garton and Denton by-election.
Hello! Remember me? I did a runner from my seat at Leigh when Corbyn was leader, and it was a jolly good idea that I did, because we lost the seat to the Tories in 2019, even though I was Mayor of the city in which the seat was located. Well, now it seems things have calmed down, Labour isn’t losing by-elections to the Tories anymore, so I’d rather like to be an MP again and resume my career in Westminster. I hear there might be a challenge for the Labour Leadership soon, and I really don’t want to miss out on that.
This has been a difficult decision to make and I thought it would help members of the NEC if I shared my reasoning in reaching it.
The difficulty was that it took this amount of time for a seat to become vacant in Manchester. I suppose I could have tried to seek to become a candidate in the 2024 General Election, but that would have been far too obvious. Is it too obvious now?
Of course nobody wanted or expected a by-election at this time,
Because Labour is cratering in the polls, we stand every chance of losing.
. . . and I have given careful thought to what is in the best interests of the party and city-region that I represent.
And I decided I wanted to chuck it all in. Did I mention there’s going to be a leadership challenge already?
With that in mind, I have come to the conclusion that this is the moment to mount the strongest possible defence of what we stand for and what we have built in this city over many generations.
And for some reason I have decided that the way to do this is to try to become a backbench MP. Unless Sir Keir gives me a ministerial position. I make it sound like there has been a directly-elected executive Mayor of Greater Manchester for many generations. There hasn’t been. Pay no attention to this and pretend there has.
Manchester inspires because it is a place that has always stood for the equality of all people right back to the cotton workers of 1862 who refused to handle slave-picked cotton.
Of course the same workers seem to have handled slave-picked cotton for decades prior to 1862, but I don’t make it clear what is so special about 1862. This isn’t a history lesson though, except when I want it to be, as I have now done. So don’t look into this any further. Move on.
In my time as Mayor, I have drawn strength from that tradition . . .
A tradition that seems to have had a single data point and nothing more. But that is for reasons of space, I guess.
We are famous for our togetherness and, from that foundation, we are achieving huge success as the UK’s fastest-growing city region.
Thank God that Maccabi match was played in Birmingham, or the above sentence would have seemed like a complete joke. And pay no attention to the fact I don’t actually quote any statistics here about how fast this ‘city-region’ is actually growing.
And yet, there is now a direct threat to everything Greater Manchester has always been about from a brand of politics which seeks to pit people against each other.
I am not talking about jihadist Islamism here, even though the most recent example of Islamist violence in the UK actually took place at a Manchester synagogue. For some reason I am ignoring that Manchester has a large Jewish community and a large Muslim community, and that a large number of Muslims seem to have been radicalised by the events in Gaza. No, I am referring to Reform UK and Nigel Farage. Neither Reform UK or Farage has attacked a synagogue, and they not likely to. But it is them about which I am more concerned. Because they can take votes from Labour, which is obviously far more important than attacking a synagogue.
It brings with it a poison we should not let enter our city-region.
Yes, Farage and Reform UK are worse than Jihadist Islamism, because votes.
I see this by-election as the frontline of that fight for the Manchester Way and I feel I owe it to a city which has given me so much to lead it from the front, despite the risks involved.
I think I have adequately explained what I now call the “Manchester way”, a term I have just invented, as if I have discovered and nurtured a new way of living in harmony, etc., despite the synagogue attack, to which I would rather you pay no attention. Please also ignore that my definition of leading from the front is to stop being Mayor and start being a backbench MP, assuming I win this by-election, which might be iffy. But I am willing to take the risk. So you should as well.
In my current job, I have tried to pioneer a different way of doing things with some success.
This is the “current job” that I want to ditch so fast my feet won’t touch the ground. And please do not dive too deeply into what “some success” means. It means something more than “no success whatsoever”. Something is better than nothing. Glass half-full, etc. For reasons of space, I also do not explain what this “different way” actually is. Burnhamism? Perhaps I should have gotten journalists to start using that term a few years ago. D’oh!
But I have learnt in my nine years as Mayor that Manchester won’t be able to be everything it should be without similar changes at a national level. This is why I feel the need to go back.
I don’t make clear what “everything it should be” actually is. Perhaps I mean the new capital of a global imperium with me as its head? Perhaps not that drastic. Or it would take some time. And I am sort-kinda saying that Sir Keir’s government is a bit crap and that I could do a better job. And that involves being elected to become a backbench MP. Because that does seem to be the limit of my ambitions. If called forward, however, etc.
When so many people in a city-region like this are struggling to afford the daily basics, they are surely right to question why the country gave away control of them in the first place, in whose interests it is run and why no government of any colour has corrected these things for them.
I continue with saying Sir Keir’s government has been a bit crap and it is because it seems to be no different to the Conservatives. I blame that Blair, me. And I am also channelling my inner Corbyn, because that is where the party members’ votes seem to be still after Corbyn went and lost two General Elections in a row. But that is something, and, as previously mentioned, it is more than nothing.
I applaud this government for being the first in a long time to face up to them and put people before profit.
Please ignore any prior hint that I believe Sir Keir’s government is a bit crap and he is a useless leader. I have now suddenly realised I need a vote at the NEC to get permission to stand in the by-election. Sir Keir is a master of his brief and the government is wonderful. As a loyal socialist, I also ignore what happens when a government outlaws profit, because I have no recollection of how that worked out in any other country that embraced socialism. I don’t even think Venezuela actually exists; it’s just a media creation.
The progress already made on rail renationalisation, bus re-regulation, the housing crisis and devolution is truly impressive.
Giving train drivers massive pay hikes with no increase in productivity, hiking the Help for Households bus fare by 50%, seeing rocketing house prices dip slightly, and cancelling local elections by the bucketload is something with which I wish to associate myself, if it means I get to stand in that by-election. Of course I won’t present the Labour government’s achievements this way. I am not that stupid.
My role in returning would be to use my experience to help it go further and faster, as well as communicate the difference it is making.
I am not quite saying the government should do more and do it quickly, but we all know it’s going to lose the 2029 General Election so it has to bake in a lot of stuff that will take decades for someone else to fix, and we can carp on about them doing it. It’s a living. I can also do the morning round and answer questions from Nick Robinson better than you lot. Well, I think I can.
I would be there to support the work of the government, not undermine it . . .
I would leave that to others, because clean hands. Like Don Vito Corleone (apart from the Don Fanucci and Don Ciccio things, but they are in Godfather Part II, so they sorta don’t count)
. . .and I have passed on this assurance to the Prime Minister.
My consiglieri made him an offer he can’t refuse. I think . . .
I can assure the NEC that, if allowed to stand and successful in the by-election, I would give my all to the subsequent Greater Manchester Mayoral by-election.
But I will be a backbench MP in Westminster, and if the next Mayor of Greater Manchester is not Labour, well I can say I tried. I might be doing this because I know I will lose the next Mayoral election to Reform UK, and I want to do a runner before that happens. Again. That’s me.
We have such a powerful story to tell of the change Greater Manchester Labour has brought to the city-region and I am confident we can win and take that success story into a new era.
Please pay no attention to the rather inconvenient hard fact that most of this “success” was achieved under a Conservative government in Westminster, and that I was rather quiet and said relatively little about the Tories, unlike Ken Livingstone when he was GLC Leader under Thatcher.
I hope this makes my reasoning clear and I attach the required form for further information.
I have refrained from directly calling you crap, but I have sort of insinuated it. Sir Keir is going down and I want to have a crack at the top job. Or could you give me a life peerage and I would be PM from the Lords? I mean it was normal in the 19th Century. Shouldn’t we be proud of our traditions? Oh, and here’s the paperwork. I can do paperwork. That’s part of the job.
Out of respect for this internal process I will not be giving any public statements until it is concluded beyond the release of this letter.
You can be assured I will have a good old moan about this if you tell me to go take a hike. I hope no-one points out the obvious that I hold little value now to me being Mayor in Greater Manchester and tried to do a runner when the first safe-ish opportunity arose.
I am sad at the circumstances in which all this has come about . . .
Because when a Labour minister is exposed as being quite rude about ordinary members of the public on social media, sadness is the right response. If a Tory minister did the same thing, I’d come out all guns blazing in white-hot outrage. Because I am nothing if not consistent.
. . . and while he clearly made mistakes, I want to recognise the dedicated service of Andrew Gwynne to this area over many years.
Gwynne’s “mistakes” were to reveal his inner bastard time and time again an ostensibly private chat which could not help but be revealed. Betrayal is a part of politics. Look at how Sir Keir hoodwinked all those Corbynists to vote for him instead of Rebecca Long Bailey. When will people learn? Anyhoo, gissa job, pretty please.