The great mayoralty swindle

If a week is a long time in politics, then seven months must be an age. It was only in January this year that members of Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee briefed that Andy Burnham couldn’t possibly be allowed to stand as a candidate in Gorton and Denton. Their fear was that, if Burnham resigned, the role of Manchester mayor could fall to Reform in a subsequent by-election. Inadvertently, the briefing served as an embarrassing admission. In 2024, Burnham had won 214 of 215 Greater Manchester electoral wards. If each of those wards had represented a seat in a secessionist People’s Republic of Manchester Parliament, then Burnham would have held a greater share of the legislature than the Chinese Communist Party does in Beijing’s de facto one-party state. Manchester had always been