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- Hacker News
- > Here's a look at his 'Manchesterism' vision and economic model for Britain, which he describes as "business-friendly socialism"
I admit to knowing very little (close to nothing) about UK politics. But I'm happy to see the use of "socialism" in up-front talking points. It's at least a nod in the right direction.
> He says years of privatization and deregulation have not only stripped the government of control over its costs and services but also saddled it with inefficiencies.
Ok, also seems reasonable.
> Burnham campaigned for Britain to stay in the European Union at the time of the Brexit referendum in 2016.
Yes, still good (on the surface, anyway).
> Farage's party has been well ahead of Labour in opinion polls for many months.
Unrelated to the stuff directly above but still disappointing. Dems and Labour need to do a better job or disaffected people will continue to listen to the siren song of fascists telling them that their problems are caused by THE SPOOKY OTHER.
by alsetmusic - Starmer was the UK version of Joe Biden. He was the right guy to get Labor back on track and sort out the financial disaster left by the Tories. But he couldn't build a convincing vision of the future.
But replacing it with another guy that has no mandate is a fatal mistake. What Labor needed was an internal contest to fight for the best ideas, even if the winner was already pre-determined. A single local poll can't possibly decide the future of the country.
But perhaps the idea is to trigger a re-election because a "continue as usual" will be fatal for Labour and the country.
by DarkNova6 - Provided you do have more than one candidate for the job - Streeting already said nah...by soco
- No need to get used to him. Won't last long either.by ulfw
- I think this is getting ridiculous.
My proposal: Let's get rid of the position of PM altogether. Maybe then the musical chairs will stop.
- The power of having a parliamentary system. Combined with the power of 77,462 residents of Makerfield.
Love the UK - we can be brutal if MPs want a leader .
by bmsleight_ - Same problems, different face.
- >It paves the way for Britain's seventh leader in 10 years
How come the revolving door? I'd like to taste a bit of that here in the US, but isn't such frequency societally destabilizing? I am not up on UK election process (I assume elections happened), forgive my ignorance.
by stasomatic - Will he last longer than a cabbage?
- For those unware, this is Keir the Cabbage, distant relative of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Truss_lettuceby keysersoze33
- Hopefully the successor will clean the mess still left realted to the Pakistani rape gangs and police collusion.
The entire UK society seem to have been trying to ignore the issue rather than solve the root of it (which is not necessarily immigration itself but political correctness)
by davidguetta - Ridiculous and undemocratic.
Burnham (for those who are unaware) can be best described as a Tony Blair B-side, and is most notable from his previous stint in government for his role in the Private Finance Initiative disaster, eg:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jun/28/labour-debt-peter...
by mellosouls - Agree with your first sentence but he is described as being on the very left wing of the party and, if he becomes PM, it will be with the support of the left wing, not the blairites.
- Why undemocratic? I thought parliamentary elections in UK worked like in most of Europe: you vote for a party, not a candidate.
At least here, it already happened, to have the PM resigning and then someone else from the party to pick up the role and that’s legally sound.
by mbmbn - And he'll be just as powerless to solve any of the big problems as the last half a dozen PMs.by bluescrn
- There is one thing that might be in his power: to stop censoring and arresting people protesting against genocide.
Edit: lol thanks HN for the usual downvote! :) I love this place!
by cassianoleal - Just a symptom of late Capitalism. They are all like this one but with different flavor.by markus_zhang
- A completely pointless exercise for all involved. Rearranging deck chairs of the titanic that is the labour party.by rapsey
- And were being dealt with quite well by Starmer, but that wasn't good enough somehowby marysol5
- People forget that the government is still mostly the civil service. The thin veneer of politicians over the top doesn't change the operating constraints of the UK unless you can spend a long time on the matter and reshape things slowly. Which was what was happening until this mess.
Now it's start again...
by cryo32 - Well Starmer had a massive majority and could have got whatever was needed passed to sort out public finances, but his MPs rebelled (or he chickened out).by gadders
- Whilst the value of the pound and NHS backlog did slowly improve under Starmer, my favourite part of his term was the 2024 interview where he described himself as not dreaming or having internal thoughts.
I don't expect huge improvements under Burnham but I hope for at least some police manpower numbers to recover. There have been intermittent stories of planning, FSA and trading standards personnel being threatened by armed gangs in the last few years which is an indicator of some new severe gaps in state capacity.
by OgsyedIE - In the end the state needs money, which it lacks.
Maybe devolution will unlock revenue or growth?
by intended - Well the bigger issue is that none of the major parties in the UK have any kind of sensible list of priorities, that they can actually whip the MPs to stick to.
So governance is, at best, semi random…
by MichaelZuo - "not dreaming or having internal thoughts."
Internal thoughts or internal voice?
by SirFatty - >>There have been intermittent stories of planning, FSA and trading standards personnel being threatened by armed gangs in the last few years which is an indicator of some new severe gaps in state capacity.
Yes, chiefly immigration policy.
by gadders - I know you probably didn't mean it that way - but people with aphantasia are often very creative, and visionary despite.by reedf1
- Regardless of the rights and wrong policy wise: Starmer was not a people person. I was as big a remainer as you'd ever find, and even I have to admit Boris Johnson could work people. Starmer was so inept in his day to day handling of his fellow humans it's surreal.
My personal favourite (and not the only example, but my own final straw) was his response when a large chunk of his traditional electorate voted for a female Plumber 'who wanted to make work pay for working people' and build 'healthier communities' is worth watching as an example of how to make more people jump ship.
For better or worse I signed up for the Green Party on the spot when I read that.
He was possibly a good backroom manager and well intentioned, but for leadership... no.
- The police swerved hard into deploying state capacity against exactly the wrong people: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/12/more-women-arres...
Meanwhile ignoring the actually violent far right to the point that we had arson attacks in Belfast and a stabbing spree killer in Edinburgh.
by pjc50