{"id":597396,"date":"2026-05-22T04:34:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T04:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/597396\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T04:34:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T04:34:15","slug":"starmer-says-he-will-campaign-for-burnham-in-makerfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/597396\/","title":{"rendered":"Starmer says he will campaign for Burnham in Makerfield"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sir Keir&#8217;s leadership was plunged into crisis last week, after dozens of Labour MPs called for him to stand down and Wes Streeting resigned as health secretary, criticising his government&#8217;s &#8220;drift&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The revolt against Sir Keir&#8217;s leadership came after a dire set of election results that saw Labour lose power in Wales and almost 1,500 council seats in England.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sir Keir has insisted he will not &#8220;walk away&#8221; from Downing Street and has sought to seize control of the political agenda with a series of announcements on the cost of living this week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">His intention to canvass voters in Makerfield, in Greater Manchester, is unexpected given Burnham is widely expected to challenge Sir Keir for the Labour leadership, should he become an MP.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When asked whether he would be out supporting the Greater Manchester mayor&#8217;s campaign in Makerfield, Sir Keir told reporters: &#8220;Yes, and I&#8217;ve said to the whole Labour movement that I want everybody to be involved in the campaign, whatever other discussions are going on, it&#8217;s really important \u2013 that&#8217;s a straight fight between Labour and Reform.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He said Labour has &#8220;got a very good story to tell&#8221; on the doorstep, referring to recent economic growth figures, falling NHS waiting lists, and a drop in UK net migration to the lowest level since the start of the Covid pandemic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But in interviews and speeches in recent days, Burnham has been sending a different message.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On Thursday, he told BBC Radio Manchester Britain had been &#8220;on the wrong path for 40 years&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In a speech last week, he said &#8220;a vote for me will be a vote to change Labour&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir Keir&#8217;s leadership was plunged into crisis last week, after dozens of Labour MPs called for him to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-597396","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\/597396","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=597396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}