{"id":397260,"date":"2026-01-29T17:55:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T17:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/397260\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T17:55:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T17:55:07","slug":"andy-burnham-says-insiders-at-westminster-dont-get-licence-to-lie-after-byelection-row-andy-burnham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/397260\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Burnham says insiders at Westminster \u2018don\u2019t get licence to lie\u2019 after byelection row | Andy Burnham"},"content":{"rendered":"

Westminster insiders \u201cdo not get a licence to lie\u201d, said Andy Burnham on Thursday, in an angry swipe at the political briefing culture in the House of Commons<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After a week of political antagonism over the Labour party\u2019s national executive committee\u2019s decision to block Burnham<\/a> from standing in the Gorton and Denton byelection next month, the Greater Manchester mayor said he would call out liars in Westminster in the aftermath of the dispute.<\/p>\n

During a phone-in with BBC Radio Manchester, Burnham said since his time in government he had witnessed people who \u201cjust think they can say what they like\u201d to the media. \u201cThey do it to denigrate the character, impugn the integrity of elected politicians,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The fallout of Starmer and the NEC\u2019s decision to block Burnham has continued to reverberate this week.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday Burnham accused Downing Street sources of lying, after an unnamed Starmer ally briefed that he had been told \u201cin no uncertain terms\u201d that any request to the NEC committee to put his name forward for the byelection would be refused. A No 10 spokesperson denied that anyone close to Starmer had told Burnham the NEC would refuse his application.<\/p>\n

Burnham also used the example of the \u201cstop Wes\u201d briefings, an intervention by unnamed Downing Street sources<\/a> which warned the health secretary, Wes Streeting, and others not to launch any attempt to oust the prime minister. \u201dSome of these people are paid by the public purse, but in my view, anybody paid by the public purse does not get licence to lie.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cIn the aftermath of all of this, I\u2019m not going to be bitter, and I\u2019m going to be out there campaigning in the byelection, but I am going to call that one thing out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burnham said he wanted to \u201cgive great credit\u201d to Starmer for backing the Hillsborough law that he brought to parliament, which will require a \u201cduty of candour\u201d on public servants. But he indicated that the prime minister had taken a decision not to speak to him ahead of his decision to apply to run for a Manchester seat despite Burnham\u2019s request, although the pair had a conversation on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want this to be known as well: I spoke to senior people in the party, including the home secretary. We had a really great conversation,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I did ask to speak to the prime minister, because I wanted to assure him of something I put in the letter that supported my application, and it was that I wasn\u2019t coming in to undermine him or the government.<\/p>\n

The Manchester mayor said it was never his intention to undercut the prime minister\u2019s authority. \u201cI was coming in to see if I could contribute, because some of the things I know are holding Greater Manchester<\/a> back are problems at that level,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Asked for his thoughts on a conversation he and Starmer had on Monday, Burnham said: \u201cIt was a fair exchange, but we both said how we felt, and I was glad to have that conversation and a chance to say how I felt.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would have preferred, obviously, to speak in advance to the decision to assure him of what I was trying to do. As I say, I think it could have created a more positive path for everybody, including the prime minister, including the government.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Westminster insiders \u201cdo not get a licence to lie\u201d, said Andy Burnham on Thursday, in an angry swipe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-397260","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\/397260","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=397260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}