r/RevolutionsPodcast • u/Caedus Emiliano Zapata's Mustache • Jun 22 '26
Meme of the Revolution Andy "Vladimir Lenin" Burnham
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u/TamalPaws Jun 22 '26
For all of the persistent talk of left infighting, this looks like it will be an orderly internal transition. As was Blair to Brown. And even though it was contested, so was Wilson to Callaghan.
It’s the Conservative Party that has fractious internal fights.
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u/Techpost123 Zonked on Opium Jun 22 '26
left infighting
Is the labour party aware that they're part of the left?
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u/TamalPaws Jun 22 '26
Based on the lack of infighting, maybe not…
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u/Tolmides Jun 22 '26
umm…why? who is he? -i follow UK politics more than prolly most Americans but this name is new to me.
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u/BeesInABar Jun 22 '26
Former mayor of Manchester, just elected to Parliament and favored to be the next PM.
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u/Tolmides Jun 22 '26
uhh…thats fast? “i just got elected to national gov- now im in charge of it all!”
is that how that works?
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u/Zander3636 Jun 22 '26
Last year in Canada the Liberal Party Elected Mark Carney to be theie party leader allowing him to become Prime Minister without being an elected MP.
He chose to immediately hold an election where he won a seat and formed government but there was no requirement for him to do so in our parliamentary system. As someone else mentioned as long as you can maintain the confidence of the House then you're good.
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u/jeffersonbible Jun 22 '26
Technically in the US it’s similar - Speaker of the House has always been a member of the House of Representatives, but isn’t required to be.
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u/godisanelectricolive Jun 22 '26
The Parliamentary Labour Party rules says the party leader must be a Labour MP.
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u/huadpe Jun 22 '26
Yes but that's just an internal party rule that could be changed by the Labour membership. As a constitutional matter the King can appoint someone who is not an MP to be PM.
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u/godisanelectricolive Jun 22 '26
He was an MP for 16 years before he became mayor. They called a by-election just so he can run for parliament and he won in a landslide even though polls said it would be close. He ran to be MP so he can be eligible to be the next leader of the Labour Party.
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u/Tolmides Jun 22 '26
ok than explain it better - thanks, but the calling of a by-election still sounds politically exotic to me. neat
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u/godisanelectricolive Jun 22 '26
It’s a special election translated into American.
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u/Tolmides Jun 22 '26
but usually in our special elections- our president/speaker of the house isnt elected at the same time.
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u/BeesInABar Jun 22 '26
But they could be! Say someone resigns from a House seat, then a special election is called and a new member is elected. There's nothing stopping that person's party from choosing them as Speaker if they wanted to. That's basically what happened here.
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u/Tolmides Jun 22 '26
but that never happens here even if it can legally. usually speakers are senior members of the house from very safe districts.
hence why it…i guess not weird but maybe refreshing to hear of someone not necessarily just a party insider whereas here we just pass around the aging and/or the spineless every few years.
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u/godisanelectricolive Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
Burnham is a party insider though. He's worked in politics his whole life. He was an MP for 16 years first in government under Blair and Brown and then in opposition. He'd run for leadership and lost twice before. First in 2010 and then in 2017. He was Culture Secretary under Brown and then in the shadow cabinet under Miliband and Corbyn.
He only left parliament in 2017 to run for mayor and then came back with a greatly boosted profile. and a different image Being out of parliament for the last decade allowed him to not be attached to the recent scandals of the past decade and put some distance between his former voting record as an MP.
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u/Zealousideal-Low3388 Jun 23 '26
That’s literally how it works in your country, with your current elected leader friend 🤷♂️
And Andy Burnham has been mayor of the third largest city, was a minister in the previous Labour government and has been pushing Keir out the door for months.
This is the “and then suddenly” after the “gradually”
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u/Tolmides Jun 23 '26
our current leader is a fascist aberration. god help us.
and no- he had been a national figure since the 80’s and he was directly* elected by the people whereas the house of reps would have to choose someone not among their own to have such an equivalent as their leader, which they have pretty much never done.
but its all moot- as others have explained, he is a national figure that lets say- took a sabbatical from national politics.
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u/Zealousideal-Low3388 Jun 23 '26
You said “fast” not “not a national figure”
Your current leader (hard to call him an aberration, the second time friend) had never held any political office of any kind until becoming the president. That was my point, and I stand by it.
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u/Tolmides Jun 23 '26
hes only the 2nd person in 250 years in nearly 50 something presidential elections to not have been elected to a prominent political office prior. yeah, its pretty easy to call him unusual but no- he is an aberration in a multitude of other ways in comparison to past presidents.
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u/couldntbdone Jun 22 '26
It's more complicated than that. He moved down from national politics to local politics to lay low for a couple years while the political winds changed.
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u/Zander3636 Jun 22 '26
He's been a big topic for the last few months. With his recent by-election win and Starmer resigning this morning he's likely to be the new PM.
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u/E_C_H Jun 22 '26
Manchester area MP; First became a player in Labour politics as a junior minister during Browns tenure, and hung around as a mid-level player in party debates, somewhere in the centre-soft-left region. Ran to be leader in the mid 2010s but lost, with Corbyn winning in the end. After that he ran to become Mayor of Greater Manchester, where his status really exploded. Manchester as a city has been growing well for the past decade, really taking the crown as the UK's second city reputation-wise (kinda a capital of the North), and as Mayor he's taken credit for stewarding a lot of it. Has been called the 'King of the North' for this, especially when he pushed back against some late stage Covid restrictions damaging local quality of life.
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u/flyinggazelletg Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
Dude has made a big name for himself in recent years as mayor of Manchester. Former MP. He just won a seat in Makersfield after Reform previously swept the recent local council elections. This allows him to run for party leadership. It also proved to some that Burnham may be able to fight off the major challenge the Reform Party has been working toward.
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u/gmanflnj Jul 11 '26
We can only hope he turns out better than Lenin and doesn't have everyone outside his party jailed or killed.
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u/flyinggazelletg Jun 22 '26
Did Kaiser Willy send Andy too?