{"id":391210,"date":"2026-01-26T11:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T11:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/391210\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T11:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T11:38:09","slug":"starmer-defends-blocking-burnham-from-by-election-as-mayor-says-hes-focusing-on-manchester-live-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/391210\/","title":{"rendered":"Starmer defends blocking Burnham from by-election, as mayor says he’s focusing on Manchester – live updates"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘Good competition for Starmer’ or ‘ulterior motives’ – Gorton and Denton constituents react to Burnham blockingpublished at 09:15 GMT<\/p>\n

09:15 GMT<\/p>\n

\"\"Molly Brewer
BBC North West reporter<\/p>\n

Voters in the Gorton and Denton constituency have shared their reactions after hearing that Andy Burnham will not be allowed to stand as their candidate in the upcoming by-election.<\/p>\n

John Dowling, 72, tells BBC North West Tonight: “He’s done such a great job in Manchester, why couldn’t he replicate that in government?”<\/p>\n

He adds: “People are very disillusioned with the Labour Party at the moment. The amount of broken promises and U-turns is horrendous.”<\/p>\n

\"SusanImage caption, <\/p>\n

Susan Roughton thinks Burnham would have been “good competition” for Starmer<\/p>\n

Susan Roughton, 62, adds that he has “always been a good
\nmayor” and says “it’s a shame” he has been blocked from running.<\/p>\n

“Everyone should be allowed the opportunity to
\nmake things better,” she says. “He would have given good competition for Keir Starmer.”<\/p>\n

But Anthony Quinn, 61, says he believes Burnham had “ulterior motives” in trying to run in the by-election, and that he was using it as a “stepping stone”.<\/p>\n

\"AnthonyImage caption, <\/p>\n

Anthony Quinn says he thinks Burnham had “ulterior motives”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘Good competition for Starmer’ or ‘ulterior motives’ – Gorton and Denton constituents react to Burnham blockingpublished at 09:15…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-391210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}