Comment by jaccola

Comment by jaccola 4 days ago

Interestingly, the UK PM (and allies) just blocked a would-be political rival Andy Burnham standing as an MP.

One of the given reasons is because Burnham is currently mayor of Greater Manchester, and running a new election there would cost approx £4m(!!) which is a huge waste of taxpayer money.

I was surprised that they even gave this as a faux reason since it seems like the sort of money they would spend on replenishing the water coolers, or buying bic pens, or... building a static website!

mellosouls 4 days ago

Tangentially, Burnham has a long history with these sorts of public-sector private vampires, having been up to his neck in PFI (of "£200 to change a lightbulb" fame) in his stint leading the NHS.

eg.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jun/28/labour-debt-peter...

https://doctorsforthenhs.org.uk/the-truth-about-the-lies-tha...

etc

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lwhi 4 days ago

And that's just it. Vampiric.
The fact that a huge amount of money is extracted from the UK government for no (or very little value) is a crying shame.
I know multiple people who work as consultants (hired via private agencies, paid for by Government) who have literally done nothing for six months plus.
They have no incentive to whistleblow, the agency employing them has no incentive to get rid of them as they take a cut, and then government department hiring them is non-the-wiser because they have no technical knowledge or understanding of what's being carried out.
It should be the scandal of the decade.

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FridayoLeary 4 days ago

Being cynical i would say it's because Burnham could potentially challenge Starmer. Less cynically Labour has a big enough majority they can afford to lose this by election. The headache of replacing the mayor of Manchester is not worth it.

Why can't he just do both jobs? Boris did it iirc.

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hkt 4 days ago

If memory serves, Dan Jarvis also did it, being both MP and mayor of the South Yorkshire city region or whatever it was called at the time.
It is fairly innately political. No Prime Minister has ever polled as low as Starmer and come back from it, or so is being said in the press. Burnham might be a smart electoral move, but he's not a plaything of the Labour right, so they kept him out.

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- owisd 4 days ago
  
  The rules are inconsistent. You can be Mayor of Sheffield and an MP at the same time but you can’t be Mayor of Greater Manchester and an MP.
  
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  petesergeant 4 days ago
  
  That's not inconsistency in the rules, that's inconsistency in what being the mayor means. In Sheffield it means you show up wearing funny clothes every so often, in Greater Manchester it means you have a full-time job, a large budget, and actual responsibilities.
  For our American brethren, it's like the difference between being the Mayor of NYC vs the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade King.
  
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  roryirvine 4 days ago
  
  It's actually the role of Police and Crime Commissioner that prevents them from being an MP simultaneously. In Greater Manchester (and London) the PCC role is combined with that of Mayor, but it isn't in most other city regions.
  There's not much actual difference in the mayoral aspect of the roles - Jarvis was the Mayor of the South Yorkshire Combined Authority, not simply the mayor of Sheffield City Council.
  
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