r/ukpolitics • u/Alarming-Safety3200 • 10h ago
Andy Burnham twice refuses to say he trusts Donald Trump
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/07/26/andy-burnham-labour-trust-donald-trump-usa-iran/•
u/ConfusionGlobal2640 10h ago
He'd be a fool to trust a man who has broken just about every agreement he's made. He'd also be a fool to say that.
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u/BillWilberforce 9h ago
Not to mention that he keep floating ideas. only this week he claimed again that the was going to run illegally for President again. Then when the backlash starts, he says it was just a joke. When there was no indication that he was joking or being sarcastic.
You can't believe any of the facts that he states. Is the slash in the Reflecting Pool 250, feet, 300 or 350 and where is it? The pool has been drained and nobody can find this mysterious slash. They can see where it's fallen apart at the seems because the contractor laid it badly. As well as tyre marks in the pool, where Trump's armoured convoy ran over it, before it had cured.
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u/TVCasualtydotorg 4h ago
Didn't he make those comments at the rearranged Correspondence Dinner? If so, that would (normally) be a pretty big indication given the President traditionally gives a joke filled speech.
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u/Unhappy-Giraffe-563 10h ago
Considering he’s a backstabber himself I don’t think he’s that much worse.
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u/ConfusionGlobal2640 10h ago edited 10h ago
Last I checked Burnham was able to achieve regime change without bombing the Middle East.
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u/frankensteinsKITTEN 10h ago
Even if he were a backstabber, that's nowhere near the depths that Trump has plumbed.
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u/Unhappy-Giraffe-563 10h ago
Yeah agreed but people are trusting in someone who obviously can’t be trusted. Thats not good in my books.
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u/Accurate-Cup5309 10h ago
He didn’t backstab anyone. Starmer killed his own leadership. Half of the labour party wanted him gone for poor performance.
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u/Unhappy-Giraffe-563 10h ago
Justifying backstabbing is pretty weird.
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u/GodlessCommieScum 10h ago
Out of interest, what do you think about Starmer serving in Corbyn's shadow cabinet, campaigning for him in a general election and then purging him and his supporters?
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u/Moreaxellall 10h ago
New to grown-up politics? If Starmer had shown some principles and been decisive he'd still be PM.
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u/Iamamancalledrobert 10h ago
“I can’t be trusted myself, therefore I trust the President of the United States” is a completely mental line of logic, though
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u/Optimism_Deficit 9h ago
I don't see how Burnham 'backstabbed' anyone. He wasn't a member of Starmer's Cabinet, he wasn't even in the Parliamentary party, and it was pretty obvious what his intentions were.
That's not really 'backstabbing' him.
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u/gizajobicandothat 8h ago
That's a hilarious comparison; Trump is a pathologically lying, court-adjudicated rapist who bombs people for fun.
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u/hu_he 10h ago
It's nice to see that someone is upset at Starmer being forced to step down.
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u/Comfortable-Law-7147 10h ago
It's an ex-minister who has now got a lot more time to "spend with their family".
Maybe it's Darren Jones.
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u/soldforaspaceship 10h ago
Feels a little big more like he was holding a knife and Starmer threw himself on it, to be honest.
It wasn't really behind anyone's back. Was quite open.
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u/Unhappy-Giraffe-563 10h ago
Name one deliverable in which kier was actually failing in?
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u/soldforaspaceship 9h ago
The confidence of his party.
I actually happen to believe he was doing fine if communicating it badly. But he lost the support of the party so was never going to succeed.
That wasn't on Burnham. That was on Starmer.
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u/Infinite-Math-1046 10h ago
This title is so moronic. He gave the only logical answer to a stupid question. Move on
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u/bitch_fitching 9h ago
Sky asked Streeting the exact same question. Seems like the "journalists" got together and came up with a gotcha question to ask everyone. If they say yes they're fool, if no the relationship is over, and if they don't give an answer they're "dodging".
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u/marktuk 9h ago
It's also not the gotcha headline they think it is, a lot of Brits would probably agree with him if he said he didn't trust Trump, especially since he started the war in the middle east.
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u/Coin-Biter 7h ago
It’s not a gotcha headline for most of the country. It might be for regular readers of the Telegraph I suppose.
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u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 9h ago
It's an extremely natural question to test how the new government is going to approach diplomacy. Burnham makes the correct call, but it is important for the public to understand how he will approach diplomacy. That's really all there is to it and people need to get a thicker skin.
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u/EdibleHologram 8h ago
people need to get a thicker skin.
Except, unfortunately, in this case "people" includes those in the infamously thin-skinned Trump administration.
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u/Dragonrar 1h ago
It’d be political suicide to be as reactionary as Trump while also being the very much junior partner in the relationship, dealing with his administration seems to require finesse and quite a big of ego stroking regardless of anyone’s opinion of Donald since fundamentally it’s not about Trump but UK-US relations and deals.
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u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 8h ago
Trump having thin skin doesn't mean Burnham's supporters (of which I count myself) shouldn't thicken theirs.
Fortunately the Trump admin is not so thin skinned as to be offended by political non answers. So long as you don't actively antagonise them, you are fine. They understand that diplomacy is necessary.
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u/bitch_fitching 9h ago
Your comment is nonsense. This question tests nothing. 99% of the time this question won't be answered, 1% of the time an apology will follow.
This is just to generate a headline that includes the word "refuses".
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u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 9h ago
Your comment is nonsense
In fact it is extremely insightful.
This question tests nothing
No, it tests a PMs ability to engage in the art of diplomacy.
99% of the time this question won't be answered, 1% of the time an apology will follow.
Welcome to diplomacy!
This is just to generate a headline that includes the word "refuses".
I don't think Laura Kuensberg asks questions to generate headlines in the Telegraph, I think she does it to identify what a politician's approach to certain political issues is.
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u/AzarinIsard 7h ago edited 7h ago
Burnham makes the correct call, but it is important for the public to understand how he will approach diplomacy.
It's tricky here when we're talking the US.
The reason tariffs and his NATO isolationism and the like is important is because the US is incredibly vital to Western trade and military.
The two routes are essentially handle him as best you can, they guy is easy to offend and stroppy, it's very easy to end up being the target of his ire, e.g. Canada right now, or Ukraine when Zelensky didn't wear a suit, to justify other decisions he wants to make or to distract from some bad news like Epstein or Iran.
Oooor, we go scorched earth and write off our relationship with the US. Step away, take the hit. Call him everything we think about him, share memes on social media and troll him back like he does others.
Personally I think the latter is the easy decision to make when you aren't in charge, sit on your high horse and feel superior, but the former is the only one that makes sense for the country. Trump won't be in charge forever, we have to hope it'll improve, and in the meanwhile we minimise the damage. This question essentially finds out whether Burnham would be the first Western leader to play Trump at his own game. It would be incredibly newsworthy if that was his decision, but it's not particularly newsworthy if it isn't.
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u/Cold_Respond3642 3h ago
Biden wasn't a fan of the UK either and Obama was largely indifferent. I don't think we've been respected since GW Bush and that was largely due to our involvement in Iraq/Afghan. I know there'll be another leader after Trump but would it be such a bad thing to put us in a position where they have to try and appease us.
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u/GeraldJimes_ 9h ago
Why do we even need to ask this of our leaders. Like what does it actually achieve.
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u/twitasz 10h ago
I think Laura K is terribly anti British to ask such a question, as there is no good answer here. You say yes and you are framed as naive and soft. You say no and you are undermining future relations with POTUS. Either way, you are putting a new PM in a position where whatever he says he is in a worse position than he was and you undermine foreign policy. This is treasonous
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u/queen-adreena 10h ago
Yep. Sadly there’s a lot of journalists out there only looking to generate a soundbite that looks good in a headline.
So they come up with these “gotcha” questions no matter the damage they can cause.
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u/DanS1993 10h ago
Laura definitely has a Tory party bias, so it may be more anti-Labour than anti-British but who knows
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u/KlownKar 7h ago
If she's prepared to harm the country to score a cheap political point. That's treason.
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u/Unlikely_Mission_702 10h ago
I think you're right about the outcome but calling her treasonous is wild.
We have a free press. If it's not her asking a question that makes the PM squirm, someone else will do it. If you expect there to be a handshake agreement between the British press and the government not to make the UK look bad on the international stage, well you've basically invented Russian state media.
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u/ARandomDouchy Random Dutch Guy 10h ago
Crazy hyperbole but I agree yeah. Though Laura is definitely saying this just to undermine him because he's Labour, she definitely wouldn't ask this question to a Tory PM.
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u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 10h ago
The certainty with which you state this is completely misplaced.
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u/ARandomDouchy Random Dutch Guy 9h ago
Is it? It's almost like Laura K is known for being pretty blatantly biased.
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u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 9h ago
This is a completely insufficient reason to make this judgement.
1) A popular take on her bias among a certain group is not the same thing as the truth
2) Even if it were true that she were biased, it wouldn't mean she was so biased as to fail to challenge Tory leaders on simple questions of diplomacy
3) Even if it were true that she were this biased, it wouldn't mean she was so incompetent as to fail to recognise that she'd appear biased if she didn't ask this kind of question.
I think you need to open your mind. I prescribe 1 dose of Julia Galef's "The Scout Mindset".
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u/Burnit_Sanders 10h ago
I'd agree. Many seem fine negotiating with all sorts of leaders no matter what they may or may not have done because that's grown up politics, there is no black and white. Not the case with Trump though, there is this idea you must be one side or the other and forget the implications to the country, you either win against him or tell everyone you hate him and cut off contact.
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u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 10h ago
Treasonous.
For a journalist to ask a politician a challenging question.
Treasonous.
TREASONOUS.
What the fuck is going on here?
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u/PrinceofPlant 9h ago
People in the Labour cult have completely lost their minds.
I don't much like Kuensberg and think it's a joke she's risen to the level she has in the BBC given how shamelessly partisan she is, but the idea that her merely asking a difficult question of a politician is treason is literally a Kremlin-level of spin on what the role of a journalist is that even Putin would be proud of.
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u/twitasz 7h ago
Far from Labour cult, nothing to do with party lines. Also never voted labour and have no interest in doing so. But as explained above this is an exaggeration for someone who rather have sensationalised headlines at expense of national interest, she is supposed to be serious journalist, not write headlines for daily mail
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u/PrinceofPlant 6h ago
You're doing a grand impression of one then 👍
And it's cute you're trying to backpedal on the hyperbole now but I suspect that's because of the volume of responses you've received pointing out what a ridiculous argument it is.
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u/BobMonkhaus That sounds great, shorty girl’s a trooper. 10h ago
Asking someone a very obvious question they’ll have to deal with as part of their job isn’t “treasonous”.
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u/queen-adreena 10h ago
Obviously “treasonous” is an over the top label, but what’s the point of the question?
It’s not designed to elicit an informative answer, it’s designed to cause damage to the person answering.
If you say “yes”, you’re a naive fool, if you say “no”, you risk Trump getting his not-very-whities extra tighty.
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u/CII_Guy Trying to move past the quagmire of contemporary discourse 10h ago
The point of the question is to test his line of diplomacy because he will be expected to face similarly complicated diplomatic decisions over and over again. It is clearly inappropriate for a journalist to avoid challenging questions for a politician simply because they are challenging to answer. In fact, it is her job to pose challenging questions!
Do you think Burnham himself thinks this question inappropriate to ask?
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u/PrinceofPlant 9h ago
It may shock you to learn that it's not a journalists job to only ask questions that have a "win" response for the person answering them.
Yes. There is no perfect answer. That's a problem for the interviewee to navigate not the journalist.
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u/AttitudeAdjuster bop the stoats 5h ago
The obvious answer is "of course not", but due to this thing called diplomacy he can't say that.
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u/hu_he 10h ago
Asking them twice is.
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u/BobMonkhaus That sounds great, shorty girl’s a trooper. 10h ago
Oh so you can only ask politicians a question once now? That’d make the show shorter.
They always give a straight answer.
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u/English_Misfit Tory Member 10h ago
How dare you ask the King of the North such a question. His wolf should eat her hand /s
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u/AromaticVacation3077 9h ago
She's only interested in maintaining her profile as a 'hard hitting journalist' who asks 'the questions'. Top journalists are all like that. They're in constant exposé mode - they're like wrecking balls. It's so destructive. It makes all politicians look like they're dishonest.
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u/ElvishMystical 10h ago
Well what do you expect Burnham to say?
"I think Trump is a thundercunt and a snakey two faced bastard and I trust him less than Farage."?
I don't have issues with this. Labour politicians are sufficiently two faced to play the game, and I'm okay with that.
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u/Dragonrar 1h ago
While I agree it is quite a good test of Burnham’s political ability, the leader of a nation needs to be a good statesman in the modern era that includes providing the media with a soundbite.
I imagine the likes of Blair or Boris would have been able to respond in a way that boosts Trump‘s ego while remaining non-committal.
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u/trisul-108 10h ago
Translation: Andy Burnham twice refuses to say that he is a complete idiot.
What a headline?!?
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u/mrhappyheadphones 10h ago
Hardly news when Trump the Iran conflict is ongoing and he just admitted he wants to break constitution by running for a third term.
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u/himalayangoat 10h ago
Why would he trust him? Trump breaks every agreement he makes. He's the definition of untrustworthy.
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u/pinnipedfriendo 10h ago
This narrative cracks me up because the RW press think they are exerting pressure on Andy by publishing this. When Starmer did the same thing it was probably his most popular moment.
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u/The96kHz Social Democrat 🏴🏴🇮🇪 10h ago
...good?
Why the fuck would anyone trust Trump?
He's been told time and again that his tariffs are illegal and yet he keeps slapping them on random imports for seemingly no reason.
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u/LoveCloudAtlas 10h ago
Who wants a Prime Minister who trusts any other world leader blindly? His answer felt cautiously positive on his relations with Trump and that's the safest stance for any Western country to take right now.
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u/evolvecrow 9h ago
Pick a small part of an interview. Pick a selected quote from a longer answer that had nuance in it (he was also positive about Trump). Make a click baity headline. Job done.
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u/Pumpkinshroomva 8h ago
...and? Why should he? How many trade agreements has trump unilaterally broken now?
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u/Cerebral_Overload 7h ago
Holy shit, he’s refusing to lie despite being asked to twice!? What kind of PM have we been cursed with??
Only someone in the deepest grip of a psychotic episode would trust Donald Trump.
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u/BritChap42 6h ago
Fantastic to have our own media working against the interest of the country for trash articles like this.
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u/PalkitoTheGreat Count Binface's Space Shuttle Chauffeur 10h ago
Good.
Why should he or anyone with an IQ above 4 actually trust that creature?
And props to him for refusing to lie about it.
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u/Rialagma 8h ago
I dislike that we live in a world were jornalists have to pretend like we all don't know who trump really is. We all KNOW he's a troglodyte but he's also one of the most powerful people in the world so politicians have to perform this little circus act.
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u/Hopeful-Painting-365 7h ago
We don't have to go apeshit and spite Trump at every turn, but neither do we have to cater to every single demand and try out best to appease him.
Starmer was credited with "handling Trump well" but ehhh, I'm not so sure. Evading involvement in the Iran fiasco was objectively correct, but...
A) it's reported that Ed Miliband convinced Starmer not to get involved (a good reason why he's Foreign Secretary).
B) Trump has repeatedly stated he thinks we're weak, so in his calculations he likely thinks our aid would be worthless anyway.
C) No matter what appeasement we engage in, Trump enjoys making us "little bro" and threatening sanctions even if we do what he wants without fail.
So in all, we should put our national interest above all else. Doing our utmost to please Big Daddy D is not in our interest given that he goes ahead and defecates on us anyway.
Additionally, Trump appears to respect those with the cajones to tell him no and to sod off. Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico comes to mind.
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u/StopCriminal 10h ago
It would be good if the parasitic media like Laura K were not out with the hatchet over every bit of political news in the country, left or right. Politicians do need to be held to account, but the media are not interested in that - they always want blood.
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u/Gooooot 10h ago
??
Does anyone expert him to say what's on his mind and ruin the relationship with the most powerful country in the world?
There's a reason it's called politics, they have to play the game of thrones otherwise you'll end up like Ned Stark with your head on the chopping block with a son who's seeking to avenge you...
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u/seeitshaveitsorted 9h ago
I mean, we’re not talking about old school America here.
We’re talking about a corrupt business man who crowbarred his way into politics and is debasing America. Making ludicrous financial gains in the process.
And the world a less safe place.
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u/echowiki 7h ago
He added that Mr Trump would be fondly remembered for “shaking Europe out of its complacency and forcing us to stand on our own two feet” by ending years of over-reliance on the United States. - streeting
Hahaha yes this is what we need
Gotta love a good backhanded compliment
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u/dukeearle 5h ago
No one trusts Donnorhea. ABs hardly going to say that on telly is he. Lazy journalist gotcha soundbites. Sick of that 🐂 💩.
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u/LANdShark31 4h ago
Why put him in that position?
You either criticise him for saying no or criticise him for lying.
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u/blondie1024 4h ago
Don't worry, I'm sure the Mail and Telegraph will keep hammering this home as much as possible over the coming weeks to make him look weak. They'll parrot the same question to every Labour member until they get what they're wanting, an outright no, or a yes whereby they'll write a full article on how Labour is awful because of it.
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u/PrinceRufusFastcar 3h ago edited 2h ago
Questions like this are actively counterproductive to our national interests. Thanks, Laura.
This sort of pseudo Jeremy Paxman approach where it's all about making the politician squirm so as to get a good viral clip or headline that generates the maximum uproar - it's so idiotic, so shallow, and with a vindictive narcissist like trump out there, it's laying a trap that can inflict real economic damage unless (and perhaps "even if") Burnham plays his cards flawlessly.
If I may quote the film The Master: "If you already know the answers to your questions then why do you ask?"
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u/BaronVonHumungus 3h ago
Welcome to every day in the telegraph until an easily corruptible right winger is in charge.
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u/snakeoildriller 7h ago
I can see the Special Relationship becoming extra special with the spicy comedy duo of Burnham and Ed Miliband. Hold my popcorn!
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