Claire McNabAndy #Burnham has chosen his #Blairite former colleague #James Purnell as his chief of staff. 🤮
No surprise that the Blairism is winning out over his #Manchesterism. But still, 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
zbrown@2legged I sware it's like they *want* us to get into conspiratorial thinking sometimes.
Like, did Burnham make this decision or did Blair? Do they really expect us to believe Burnham is even slightly new or lefty even whilst replaying 2001 on a loop? What's Purnell been up to lately?
Even the most innocent explanation, that they've simply remained friends since first become Labour MPs in the same election, only serves to demonstrate the rot that is New Labour.
@zbrown #JamesPurnell has been chief executive of the lobbying firm Flint Global since 2024.
So he's just another everyday northern lad living in a redbricked back-to-back, with an anorak and a ferret and a crap haircut, driving his tired old Ford Fiesta to a few pints with t'lads down t'workingmens club of a Friday. 🤮
So how long until Burnham's unpopularity beats #Starmer's record? 6 months? 6 weeks?
@2legged assuming he manages to make it to September (and thus actually being PM) with any sort of popularity, I think he might make it to the new year.
Probably not Valentines though.
@zbrown So, somewhere in between #LizTruss and #AndrewBonarLaw on the list of tenures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_the_United_Kingdom_by_length_of_tenure 😅🤣😈
@2legged speaking of, did you know she, in effect, has a deadname?
Bonar Law also. He *never* went by Andrew.
@zbrown I know, but I find that one a bit weird, because the 1920s PM's eponymous grandson is the (now v elderly) charmingly eccentric father of a 1970s school friend of mine. In the family I knew, the word "Bonar" was sometimes used, but often omitted.
@2legged as in the grandson had the same name but favoured Andrew?
I suppose that makes sense, ‘Bonar’ is a slightly unusual name, and it's probably not entirely fun to share a name with a random PM!
@zbrown Yes, grandson also Andrew Bonar Law.
A hard-line unionist Brit PM from civil war time was not a great connection in 1970s Dublin, so the Bonar was shelved. Andrew was lovely, few clues if you didn't know about the Bonar.
@zbrown The current Andrew Bonar Law (born 1933) is a bit of a polymath, but is best known as Ireland's greatest collector of maps and prints. Organised about a decade ago by his daughter, now in the National Library of Ireland; https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-culture-communications-and-sport/press-releases/bonar-law-collection-acquired-by-national-library-of-ireland/