Burnham is overrated as the 22% favourite to succeed Starmer
I have made this point before but I will make it again that punters are over-rating Andy Burnham’s chances of becoming the next Labour leader. In my view he is favourite in the betting almost solely on the basis that he has higher name recognition and he has competed for the job twice before.
What people seem to be forgetting is how poorly Burnham performed when he first ran for the post in the aftermath of the party”s GE2015 defeat and in the follow-up election when Corbyn was forced to defend his post. After his second flop Burnham decided to quit national politics and run for the newly created post of Mayor of Greater Manchester.
That of itself creates a problem because he is no longer an MP which is a requirement to be a contender.
A lot of this depends on when the vacancy occurs. If it was during a parliament he’d have to persuade a friendly LAB MP to give up his job thus creating a by-election in which Burnham could return to the Commons. The problem here is that the leadership timetable would be largely set by the party’s NEC who could set up a very short campaign that would make it hard for all this to happen.
In any case, last May Burnham was re-elected to the mayoral position and it would look a bit odd to ditch that so soon.