Politics
Politics Home Article | Wes Streeting Backs Andy Burnham For Labour Leader
Wes Streeting stood down as health secretary last month (Alamy)
3 min read
Former health secretary Wes Streeting has announced he is backing Andy Burnham to take over from Keir Starmer as Labour leader and prime minister.
Starmer announced on Monday morning that he would stand down as PM this summer, triggering the process to replace him as leader.
Having comfortably won the Makerfield by-election last week, Burnham is returning to Parliament as an MP and has confirmed his intention to stand as leader to replace Starmer.
Streeting, who resigned as health secretary last month, was widely viewed as one of the main potential contenders to run for the leadership, but has now backed Burnham.
“Having spoken at length with Andy in recent days, I’m convinced that there is a place for those ideas under his leadership; that he is committed to building an inclusive party that draws on the best of our political traditions; and that he can win the fight of our lives against the forces of nationalism,” Streeting said.
“We could spend the summer exaggerating small differences, or we can roll up our sleeves and help him to deliver the change our Party and our country needs. That is the choice that I am making and I hope that everyone else will back Andy, too.”
He said the Makerfield by-election was a “victory for unity and hope over division and hatred” and also a victory for Burnham.
In his resignation letter to Starmer in May, Streeting said there were “good reasons” for him to remain as health secretary, but added: “As you know from our conversation earlier this week, having lost confidence in your leadership, I have concluded that it would be dishonourable and unprincipled to do so.”
He said last month’s local election results “were unprecedented – both in terms of the scale of the defeat and the consequences of that failure”.
Burnham confirmed his intention to run for the Labour leadership shortly following Starmer’s speech, praising his “huge service to our country” during a “challenging period”.
“His decision marks the beginning of a transition and it is important that this process is conducted in an orderly and responsible way,” he said.
“I will put myself forward as part of this process. The country expects stability, seriousness and a continued focus on the issues that matter most and that is what it will get.
“As we move forward, our priority must be to work together to get the country back to where we all want it to be. People want to see progress on economic growth, cost of living, public services, housing and opportunities for the next generation.”
Speaking outside No 10 on Monday morning, Starmer said he had accepted the wishes of Labour MPs with “good grace” and that he would help facilitate an “orderly transition” for his successor.
He informed the King this morning that he had resigned as Labour Party leader, triggering a process to replace him that will begin in early July, with a new prime minister in place by September.
I never used to wash my jeans inside out, until I met my other half who – it turns out – knows quite a lot about laundry. He was adamant that jeans (and indeed many items of clothing) should be washed inside out.
But I never really understood why. It turns out I’m not the only one.
In a question submitted to The Guardian recent, reader Paul Williams asked: “Why does my wife make me turn my jeans inside out before they go in the wash? She doesn’t know either.”
There were 44 responses from other readers, at the time of writing, including this gem: “In Malaysia, I learnt to turn washing inside out to dry so that the hot sun could really get to any damp loving bugs lurking in the thicker seams.”
Another person said they’d assumed it was to stop the zips rubbing against, or catching on, other garments.
Why should you wash jeans inside out?
It’s actually to do with preserving the look of your jeans, according to Levi’s.
The denim brand advises to always turn jeans inside out before putting them in the washing machine.
“This simple (but usually neglected) step protects the outer colour from fading and minimises direct contact with chemicals and detergents,” the brand explained.
“This step is especially important for dark-wash and black jeans that are more prone to colour loss or transfer.”
Similarly, Guardian reader ‘rigoletto’ explained: “Denim is yarn dyed in such a way that the colour is only on the surface of the yarn. The dye particles are vulnerable to abrasion, which is why the fabric goes white at the stress points, where the original colour of the yarn starts to show through.
“Washing inside out reduces the chance of abrasion against the drum of the machine and premature fading.”
Any other tips for washing jeans?
Yes! Levi’s suggested we should be washing jeans after roughly 10 wears, “unless they are visibly dirty or start to smell”.
Consumer watchdog Which? puts it at six to 10 wears.
When you go to wash your jeans, make sure all the zips and buttons are done up (to help maintain shape and prevent snagging) and use a mild detergent, avoiding fabric softeners (which can “leave a residue” on denim) where possible.
The best temperature to wash on is the coolest one, as higher temperatures can shrink your jeans and result in colour loss.
Much of the south is in the grips of another heatwave, with temperatures set to hit highs of 37°C this week.
In southeast Wales, temperatures are expected to reach 35°C, while eastern areas are set to see a toasty 33°C.
As a result, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has issued a series of red, amber and yellow heat health alerts.
The Met Office has also issued a rare red extreme heat warning for parts of central and southern England and Wales, running from Monday to Thursday evening.
It is likely the current highest temperature on record for June (35.6°C recorded in Southampton in June 1976) will be broken.
While school leaders scramble to make the school day more comfortable for pupils – relaxing uniform rules, encouraging kids to stay hydrated and wear sun hats, and keeping them in the shade or indoors for the hottest parts of the day – some parents (and teachers) will likely be wondering whether there’s a temperature threshold where children might need to remain home instead.
When is it too hot to go to school?
As it stands, there’s no maximum threshold set where it would be deemed too hot to go to school.
A blog post from the UK government in 2025 said: “During hot weather, we don’t normally advise schools to close. This is because school attendance is the best way for pupils to learn and reach their potential, and hot weather can usually be managed safely.”
But the same guidance suggests that using fans at temperatures above 35°C “may not prevent heat-related illness and could worsen dehydration”.
Some UK schools do not have sufficient cooling measures in place.
On 22 June, a handful of schools in the west of England confirmed to the BBC they’d be finishing lessons early, around lunchtime, as a result of the heat.
What are the health risks to kids?
The Met Office’s red heat alert has warned of “population-wide averse health effects” which are not limited to those most vulnerable to extreme heat and can lead to “serious illness or danger to life”.
Children are more vulnerable to the effects of heat stress as they “sweat less per kilogram than adults and have a higher metabolism, which means they get hot quicker”, according to Unicef.
They’re also outdoors a lot more – playing, running around and engaging in sports – which puts them more at risk for heat exposure.
Young children are also at risk of dehydration as they won’t always remember to drink lots of water, which can be dangerous to health.
Should the UK set a heat threshold for schools?
Some organisations are calling for one – or at the very least, better cooling systems so children can go to school safely when it is hot.
In May 2026, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) published a report urging the UK government to improve infrastructure for “better cooling” as the climate heats up.
The frequency and intensity of heatwaves has increased worldwide and Met Office projections suggest hot spells will become more frequent in the UK, especially the south east.
As a result, the CCC called for investment in cooling – including air conditioning, heat pumps and green shading – across key public services. This would include schools and nurseries.
It also said there should be a “national maximum temperature” for workplaces to protect workers’ safety and incentivise the deployment of cooling systems.
The National Education Union (NEU) has said that “because of the nature of the way in which education staff work, and the presence of children, a maximum indoor working temperature of 26°C is appropriate”. This week’s temperatures will far exceed that.
On 22 June, it called for urgent funding to make schools safe in the hot weather.
“A funding injection could be used implement adaptations, including air conditioning, which will make them more resilient to extreme heat,” it shared on social media.
The NEU also suggested that when a red alert is issued for extreme heat, “school and college employers must ensure that an immediate, additional risk assessment is carried out and the control measures indicated are enacted, which could include full or partial closure of the site”.
Did you know flight attendants aren’t just being nice when they greet you on a plane?
Nope – they’re also reportedly checking your fitness to help in an emergency, and sometimes eyeing up your luggage or sobriety levels.
And on the flip side, staff aren’t being mean when they tell you you can’t return to a plane to get something you’ve left behind, either. There are some pretty important reasons behind the decision.
Amanda Parker, a travel expert at Netflights, has shared that’s not the only sneakily strategic decision hiding in plain, or should I say plane (teehee), sight either.
“Passengers may not realise how important it is that aircraft are painted white,” she said.
So, why are planes white?
The first, and perhaps most obvious, reason is that white paint reflects sunlight.
This helps to keep the aircraft’s surface and cabin cooler, and protect the structure from heat-related damage, Parker said.
But the hue also “helps reduce the risk of bird strikes, as birds can spot white aircraft more easily against the sky or ground, allowing them to avoid collisions,” the expert continued.
“Darker colours reduce contrast and make planes less visible to birds, increasing the likelihood of impact.”
Then, there’s the fact that damage shows up better on white paint than it might on other shades.
“Regular inspections are critical for flight safety. Cracks, dents, oil leaks, and other damage are often darker than the white paint, making them easier to detect and address quickly, helping boost maintenance efficiency and keep passengers safer,” Parker stated.
Any other reasons?
“Aircraft paints are specialised and expensive, requiring large volumes up to 3,600 litres of paint for a jumbo jet like the Airbus A380. Because white is the most commonly used colour, it is also the least expensive and lightest paint option,” Parker shared.
“Using lighter paint reduces aircraft weight, which lowers fuel consumption and operating costs.”
On top of that, white paint fades less than coloured ones. And seeing as “repainting grounds the aircraft for up to two weeks and can cost between £150,000 to £300,000, airlines prefer white paint because it maintains its look for longer and saves money”.
Not since Miranda Priestly’s The Devil Wears Prada speech about cerulean have I realised the importance of a simple colour…
So he’s gone. Keir Starmer has resigned. The adults are out of the room. He waltzed into Downing St two years ago to the effusive gushing of the liberal commentariat, and now he’s slinking out. He and his slack-jawed media cheerleaders promised us an era of blissful if boring stability. What they gave us were riots, division, betrayal after betrayal, and an unprecedented assault on the ancient liberties of our nation. The lesson of the Starmer epoch? Never trust a technocrat.
Few tears will flow over the death of his insipid premiership. He’ll be remembered as the human-rights lawyer who took a cudgel to the sacred right of trial by jury. The self-styled worshipper of competence who was staggeringly incompetent. The man with the great work ethic who often switched off for the whole weekend, leaving ministers stumped and the nation leaderless. The ‘details man’ who didn’t even know Peter Mandelson had failed his vetting to become our ambassador to the US. Starmer was a mirage. A hologram of competence operated by an army of the inept.
It pays to look back on the media fawning that followed his electoral victory in July 2024. There was an explosion of onanistic glee in Britain’s moneyed quarters. ‘Keir Starmer has turbo-charged my arousal levels’, said Caitlin Moran of The Times. She claimed ‘every middle-aged woman’ she knew had felt ‘kind of fruity’ upon watching Sir Keir go into Downing St. Other sad centrists wanted less to be fucked by Sir Keir than sedated by him. They made a holy virtue of his dullness. They prayed he would Make Britain Boring Again. He ‘embodies the politics of boring’, said one giddy scribe, which is just what ‘mayhem-weary’ Britain needs. After the Brexit wars, the Boris years and the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Liz Truss era, we’ve had enough of ‘fireworks and political circus’, declared the BBC – now is the time for ‘vague, even boring [politics]’.
It was extraordinary the extent to which they sacralised Starmer’s blandless. His very lack of charisma was fetishised as a virtue. ‘Haven’t we had enough of charismatic leaders?’, asked one columnist. Surely what we need now is ‘someone who will manage the government in a cool and calm way’. Sir Keir’s ‘dull ordinariness’ is the best weapon we have against the ‘unchained forces of mayhem’ in British politics, said Politico. And there it was, the brutal truth about why they fell at the feet of this adenoidal personality void – they believed, they prayed, that his sheer greyness would smother the fires of dissent lit by Brexit and the broader populist thirst for a realigned, reimagined politics.
The Starmer project, at root, was a bloodless coup of bureaucratic vengeance. It was the institutionalisation of boredom as an antidote to the spirit of Brexit. The chattering classes swooned over Starmer’s lifeless, flavourless style because it was such sweet relief from the unpredictable passions of the little people. It was technocracy summed up: politics as fire extinguisher, designed less to represent the people than to tame them, less to heed our angry demands than to bury them under a slagheap of managerialism. The great hope of Starmer’s high-status backers was that he would ‘lower the temperature’.
It wasn’t long before this illiberal crusade to sanitise public life crashed against the shores of reality. The first problem was Starmer’s own shortcomings. Having won the General Election on just 33.7 per cent of the vote, he lacked moral authority. It was said by some that he won on the basis of four words: ‘I am not them.’ But that was the problem. Not being the Tories was not enough. His was a victory by default, driven more by public exhaustion after 14 years of Tory misrule than by public enthusiasm for this celebrated lacker of charisma. From Day 1, the favoured bore of the priestly class struggled to connect with your average unboring Brit.
Then there was the fact that Mr Competent was not so competent. He was rarely across his brief. He u-turned constantly. His administration lurched from scandal to scandal, from Angela Rayner’s tax idiocy to that whole installing of a pervert’s buddy as US ambassador. Starmer was a staggeringly incurious prime minister. His was a ‘passive premiership’, as that gobsmacking Sunday Times feature described it in March. People were often struck by the ‘unnatural, overwhelming silence’ in Downing St as the PM and his equally grey minions got on with things ‘wordlessly behind closed doors’. Let the fall of Starmer be a lesson to the Western elites: managerialism might be fine for a smalltown bank but it is death itself in a realm where argument, contestation, morality and noise ought to be the norm.
But the larger problem for limp, damp Starmerism was that it was so catastrophically at odds with public sentiment. You see, people didn’t want to be sedated. They didn’t want to be tranquilised into an infantile state by the halfwits and dullards of Westminster. They didn’t want to see the grey slaying of what media snobs called ‘the unchained forces of mayhem’ but which we called democracy.
So, far from being a ‘haven of peace and stability’, Starmer’s Britain became a hotbed of social conflict. There were the Southport riots, the Southampton riots, the Belfast riots. There was furious disagreement over two-tier policing and identity politics. The England flag was hoisted across the land in defiance of the haughty Europeanism and oikophobia of the Starmer classes. The rape-gang scandal bubbled up from under the crude lid of censorship forced on it for so long. Fury over our broken borders exploded into street protests. Starmer came to be hated. He became the most unpopular PM on record. At times the loathing felt almost unfair. But having been hailed by the lanyard classes as the technocratic saviour of a nation that had fallen to the forces of ‘mayhem’ (ie, public opinion), it was inevitable that hating Starmer would become the bread and butter of those of a populist persuasion.
Everything Starmer did was about ‘lowering the temperature’ of the public. His rule laid bare the calculated authoritarianism of a ruling class that considers management of the masses to be the highest goal of public life. From his attack on trial by jury to his mad insistence on bringing in a new definition of ‘Islamophobia’ to his allergic reaction to the public fury over Henry Nowak, he was always driven by a patrician impulse to subdue the popular will. To neutralise political contestation itself in order that the mythical competence of his kind might enjoy free rein. All the civil unrest we’ve seen these past two years – some of it democratic, some of it violent and ugly – is best understood as a fuming reaction against the rule of the boring and its black dream of public disenfranchisement.
And now we have the prospect of prime minister Andy Burnham, the man who edged Starmer out of Downing St with his victory in the Makerfield by-election last week. The elites want Burnham to do what Starmer failed to: quell the ‘mayhem’ of Britain’s resurgent democratic spirit. Only where they thought Starmer’s dearth of charisma might achieve that, now they hope Burnham’s much-hyped charisma will. They’ve tried boring us into submission, now they’ll try Burnhaming us into submission. They’ve learned nothing. Ten years since Brexit and we’re still lumbered with an expert class that is breathtakingly dumb.
Brendan O’Neill is spiked’s chief political writer and host of the spiked podcast, The Brendan O’Neill Show. Subscribe to the podcast here. His latest book – After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation – is available to order on Amazon UK and Amazon US now. And find Brendan on Instagram: @burntoakboy.
Politics
Lord Ashcroft: Where are the Conservative voters on Brexit ten years on and are they changing their minds?
Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is an international businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster. For more information on his work, visit lordashcroft.com
Earlier this month I explored whether or not it was in Labour’s interests to promise a referendum on rejoining the EU. Here we look at the other side of the coin: Brexit and the Conservatives.
After an election defeat, a party has to show it has listened and learned. To admit no errors would be to suggest it has learned nothing. But a party which trashes its own record across the board looks either unserious or unprincipled. Where does Brexit fit in?
My most recent poll asked if life in Britain over the last few years had been better, worse or about the same than it would have been if we were still in the EU. On the left, the view is clear: around eight in ten Labour, Lib Dem and Green voters say “worse”. On the right, the view is more nuanced, as we see from the chart below.
Reform voters are twice as likely to think that Brexit has changed the UK for the better than for the worse, and the balance of opinion among their current supporters matches the balance of opinion among its 2024 voter base. The Conservatives, however, have seen a shift. Their 2024 voters divided evenly, but those currently leaning towards the party tend to think that leaving has made things worse.
Voters hovering between the Tories and Reform incline slightly towards thinking Brexit has been beneficial (and fewer than one in five think it has made things worse). However, those who are undecided between the Conservatives and a party other than Reform are decidedly negative about the effects of Brexit. These groups are roughly the same size, and the Conservative will need to win over both in order to recover electorally.
As well as being divided on this question, the potential Conservative voting coalition includes significant numbers of both leavers and remainers. In fact, the Tories are the only party to draw support from both sides of the Brexit divide. The risk associated with a reopening of the EU debate is clear.
What may be less clear is the potential benefit.
In a fragmented five-party landscape, there is an increasing tendency for leaders to tell their core voters exactly what they want to hear, even if in places it is self-contradictory. Pleasing some of the people all of the time is not a realistic prospectus for governing Britain in the 2020s. Badenoch has the opportunity to position the Conservatives as a party for both sides of the Brexit divide and one that is capable of governing in a united interest, rather than for a small sectional interest. If this sounds woolly, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were able simultaneously to broaden their electoral base and pursue an unapologetically conservative agenda.
Our political map helps tell the story. Bubble sizes are proportional to the size of the relevant voter group, and the closer bubbles are, the more similar the respective groups of voters. In the party colours, we have the locations of current support for the five largest parties. The other bubbles represent combinations of attitudes of particular relevance to the Conservatives.
There is a group of 2016 leave voters who so regret Brexit that they would vote to rejoin the EU. However, they are close to the centre of the political map and a long distance from any of the party bubbles. This suggests both that these people have little in common in the way of political outlook beyond their view of Brexit, and that they will be hard for any party to target. In other words, there is little mileage in trying to build an electoral coalition around Bregret.
We also asked whether three potential conditions associated with readmittance to the EU (joining the Euro, joining the Schengen area, and paying a higher membership fee than before) would be acceptable or unacceptable. We can see the position of the bubbles showing current likely Conservative voters who would consider all three unacceptable and those who would consider at least one condition acceptable. The the bubbles are similar sizes, demonstrating that the Conservative voter base is close to evenly divided on the issue (55 per cent of current Conservative voters would reject all three conditions, whereas 45 per cent would accept at least one). But they are also very close to the overall Conservative bubble, suggesting that the two groups have a lot of common political ground outside the Brexit debate.
The bitterest and most damaging political divides are those where there is clear distance between both sides on the map (as happened in 2019 with Labour’s red wall voters in the bottom right quadrant and its metropolitan remainers in the top left).
Advocates of rejoining argue that there is a settled consensus that Brexit was a mistake. But in the previous piece, we demonstrated that despite the headline landslide 23-point lead for rejoin in a hypothetical referendum, when questions of detail about the terms of rejoining are considered, the lead shrinks considerably. That is not to say that rejoin winning a referendum is implausible or even improbable: it is merely not inevitable. Questioning the details of any plan to rejoin does not open up Pandora’s Box for the Conservatives: their voters may disagree about these conditions, but it is not a polarising disagreement which risks tearing their electoral coalition apart.
Another important group is people who, while they might not like Brexit, are even less keen on the division and instability they believe would follow from reopening the debate. We asked people whether we should accept that Brexit has happened and try to make the best of it, or whether we should accept that Brexit has failed and try to rejoin at least some aspects of the EU. We can therefore examine two further groups: those who voted to remain in 2016 and now agree the UK should accept Brexit, and those who would vote to rejoin in a hypothetical referendum but nonetheless agree that the UK should accept Brexit. The first group is adjacent to the Conservatives on the political map, suggesting that they share a similar outlook on other political questions. The latter group lands in the top left quadrant, equidistant from Labour and the Conservatives on the political map; they occupy similar territory to the centrist voters we wrote about in April.
This means the Conservatives do not have to reject Brexit to appeal to the swing voters towards the “12 o’clock” position on the political map. The argument that Brexit is last decade’s issue, and the UK needs to move on rather than reopening old wounds, already resonates with them. It is an argument which is easy to make and easy to understand. Given the low ranking of Brexit in people’s list of issues, proponents of rejoin face an uphill battle. Badenoch would be well-advised not to let them take even one step up that hill.
Addressing the issues which voters rank as most important – the cost of living, immigration and healthcare – will mean tackling some emotive issues. Any serious attempt to do so entails grappling with things like social care, the UK’s national debt and low productivity. These have remained unresolved for a reason. (Indeed, they were still issues while the UK was in the EU). A future government seeking to make progress in these areas would have to make tough decisions and persuade a cynical public that they are necessary. It would have to get difficult legislation through a parliament where many MPs will have wafer-thin majorities and the government itself may well be relying on other parties. This would take a great deal of political skill, strong leadership, careful policy development and persuasive advocacy – divisive distractions like relitigating Brexit would hardly help.
What, then, should Badenoch say and do about Brexit?
The armoury of contemporary politicians is replete with silver bullets, but easy answers won’t do and the voters know it. Deciding to leave the EU presented opportunities and challenges. As a country we have to seize those opportunities and rise to those challenges. That means hard work and a government prepared to make tough choices for the long term. Just as Brexit was never the answer to every problem in 2016, it is not the cause of every problem in 2026. It is time to move on and move forward.
Full data tables at LordAshcroftPolls.com
The post Lord Ashcroft: Where are the Conservative voters on Brexit ten years on and are they changing their minds? appeared first on Conservative Home.
“David you truly are the best daddy,” the former Spice Girls star wrote. “Your greatest achievement has always been our beautiful children and we love you so much. Happy Father’s Day.”
While both Romeo and Cruz shared pictures of their dad for Father’s Day, their elder brother notably didn’t post anything on social media on Sunday.
After months of speculation about a supposed family feud, Brooklyn sparked international headlines back in January when he shared a series of candid Instagram posts, in which he accused his parents of “trying to endlessly ruin” his relationship with his wife, Nicola Peltz Beckham.
He also took aim at his famous parents for what he referred to as “performative” and “controlling” behaviour on their part over the course of his “entire life”, as well as claiming that they had tried “endlessly” to “ruin” his relationship with his now-wife.
Earlier this year, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) called for maximum temperature working rules in the UK.
In their report, titled A Well-Adapted UK, they called on the government to invest in things like “air conditioning, heat pumps and green shading” in public areas as well as “cooling” tools in the workplace.
They called rising heating, flooding, and drought a “threat” to the “British way of life”.
There is no maximum working temperature in the UK as of the time of writing, though the government points to a minimum temperature guidance of 16ºC, or 13ºC for those doing physical jobs.
Heatwaves are becoming more likely in the UK
The CCC report said that by 2025, 92% of homes are likely to overheat. They’ve proposed ideal indoor temperatures for places like care homes, prisons and homes of 16°C to 25°C.
They didn’t mention an ideal working temperature explicitly; however, they did point to Spain, where maximum working temperatures are 27°C for sedentary work and 25°C for light physical work.
Heatwaves of 40°C are expected to become more common in the coming decades, they added.
These can be seriously harmful to people’s health. The sweltering 40°C day of 2022 took place in a four-day heatwave that caused 1,000 heat-related deaths.
Speaking to HuffPost UK previously, Johan Jaques, chief meteorologist at environmental solutions company KISTERS, agreed.
He said that heatwaves were likely to become worse in the UK thanks to things like climate change and stifling building design.
“We are not powerless”
Baroness Brown, chair of the Adaptation Committee, said that “Our lives, our landscapes and our homes are under increasing pressure from the changing climate. But we are not powerless. In an increasingly unstable world, being well adapted to climate change is fundamental to securing our food, energy and economic security.
“This report carries a message of hope. The solutions already exist, and proven technologies are available now to help the UK adapt effectively. With the right decisions and actions, we can protect the people and the places we love.”
She added that we can protect the places, people, and institutions most dear to us with government changes.
Per the BBC, the government has said it would review and address the concerns in this report, and added it was already taking steps to address flooding.
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Wes Streeting has declared that he will not run to be the next Labour leader and has endorsed Andy Burnham to be Keir Starmer’s successor.
The former health secretary quit last month in frustration over Starmer’s leadership and suggested that he would challenge his premiership.
Streeting insisted he had 81 MPs backing him – the threshold needed to trigger a contest against the prime minister – but wanted to give Burnham a chance to get a seat in parliament so they could have a “battle for ideas”.
Burnham won the Makerfield by-election last week and was poised to challenge the prime minister until Starmer decided to resign on Monday morning.
Moments after the former Greater Manchester mayor announced he was running to be the next Labour leader and de facto prime minister, Streeting appeared to endorse him.
In a statement on X, he said: “After a devastating set of election results in May, the Makerfield by-election has proven that Labour can still win if we have the courage to change. It was a victory for unity and hope over division and hatred.
“It was also Andy Burnham’s victory.
“Andy has shown what Labour can be when we are inclusive, united, and in touch with the lives of the people this Party was founded to represent.”
He added: “Having spoken at length with Andy in recent days, I’m convinced that there is a place for those ideas under his leadership; that he is committed to building an inclusive party that draws on the best of our political traditions; and that he can win the fight of our lives against the forces of nationalism.
“We could spend the summer exaggerating small differences, or we can roll up our sleeves and help him to deliver the change our Party and our country needs. That is the choice that I am making and I hope that everyone else will back Andy, too.
“We were elected change our country, to show that politics can be a force for good, and to spread opportunity for everyone. With Andy, we still can.”
President Donald Trump slammed Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni again on Sunday, accusing her of refusing to support the US military after he unilaterally waged war against Iran.
In a Truth Social post that did not mention her by name but by her job title, Trump wrote: “After spending Trillions of Dollars on NATO, Italy, and its Prime Minister, wouldn’t even think of becoming involved with the Islamic Republic of Iran and their very serious Nuclear Threat. For decades, we defend them but, when tested, they are not there to defend us, and the rest of the World. Not good!”
A spat that began at the G7 summit last week is boiling over, in part due to Trump’s propensity to beef with fellow world leaders, most of whom are allies.
Trump earlier claimed that Meloni essentially groveled for a photo op with him during the get-together. “She begged me to take a picture with her. She wanted a picture with me so badly. I wouldn’t have taken it, but I felt sorry for her,” he said. He repeated the claim.
Meloni, who reportedly challenged Trump on issues related to the war in Iran during the summit, said he showed more deference to enemies than to allies. She said his claims were “completely made up.”
Trump suggested Meloni was trying to cozy up to him because of her “falling numbers.”
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani cancelled a visit to the US in the wake of the spat, calling Trump’s accusations “serious and offensive.”
Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
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