Andy Burnham would be mad to listen to Nigel Farage's call for a snap general election

Politicians know in their heart of hearts when the game is up. I had lunch with the then-Labour leader, Neil Kinnock, a few days after he lost the 1992 election to John Major.The drink flowed, Neil gave me a lift back to the Commons in his Labour Party car and sang from the back seat. He was now a free man, and a carefree one, as he prepared to hand over to John Smith.“When did you know it was all over?” I asked him. “The Thursday before polling day,” he replied. TRENDING Stories Videos Your Say “People stopped looking me in the eye, and I knew we would lose.”Keir Starmer must have thought it was all over for him following disastrous local election results and the loss of Wales last month.He must have been certain of it when Andy Burnham won Makerfield.Sir Keir promised to fight any leadership challenge, but then, as Prime Minister, he couldn’t very well say anything else, and perhaps he thought he meant it at the time.The view of most Labour MPs and his Cabinet was that he didn’t have a prayer. The time spent at his Chequers country retreat allegedly discussing options with his family was more likely spent drafting a resignation speech.And we were treated to it as the familiar lectern came out in front of No10 and Sir Keir choked up as he was delivering it.Labour promised this would never happen, that it would not repeat the mistakes of the Tory years, which saw five Prime Ministers in six years.LATEST DEVELOPMENTSI've been in No10 when a PM resigns. This is what it's really like – Oscar Reddrop‘Save the country having to shove you out, resign!’ - Nana Akua’s message to Keir StarmerI went on BlueSky to see the hard-Left's reaction to Clarkson's cancer news - what I saw appalled meAnd when Sir Keir performed the, yes, superhuman feat of turning Labour around after Jeremy Corbyn and won a thumping majority in 2024, it looked like he would get the decade in power he wanted to change Britain.But politics is never that predictable. Unexpected events, such as the Iran war, conspire to knock politicians off course.With hindsight, everyone says they saw the Peter Mandelson scandal coming, but that was only after the full extent of his relationship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein became known.Spending commitments on essentials like defence were not as certain as they at first seemed and led to the damaging resignation of John Healey, the last minister anyone thought would jump ship.However, Sir Keir set up a narrative for mistakes from the get-go. There were the freebie clothes during the election, which didn’t break the rules, but thinking it was okay to accept them was bonkers.The golden rule of politics is never to mess with pensioners, yet the Prime Minister made his first major policy announcement to take their winter fuel payments away, a blunder only a political rookie would make.Good things followed – the Employment Rights Act, the Renters Reform Act and lifting half a million children out of poverty. But so did U-turns eating up political capital. Sir Keir showed he was always a decent, thoughtful and compassionate man, but not very good at politics. And politics came back to bite him.Andy Burnham will replace him even if there is a leadership contest. I have known him for years, and he, too, is a decent, thoughtful and compassionate man.However, like Sir Keir we are not entirely sure what he stands for beyond unifying a popular left against a populist right.Which brings us to Nigel Farage and his call for a general election. Hold your horses, Nige – there is unlikely to be one.Mr Burnham has promised to keep to Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ fiscal rules and her pledge not to raise income tax, VAT and employee national insurance, which means substantially sticking to Labour’s 2024 manifesto.Risking losing a two-thirds majority in Parliament would be an error up there with taking a freebie consignment of his trademark black T-shirts. Our Standards: The GB News Editorial Charter