Ah, this explains it. I was wondering how some random person who won an off-cycle election could just jump into leadership like that. But it seems that he had the leadership support already, and the election was engineered to make him eligible.

I was curious as to why none of the already elected Labour MPs would get the job. I guess none of them want it. Let's see if he lasts longer than my salad.

Just trying to understand how it all works in the UK. What makes him so special? Did a watery bint throw a sword at him?

Thanks, sounds like a marginal improvement but I suppose we’ll see about that

This is a good summary.

I think whats missing is a lot of the hope being put into Burnham is by disillusioned Labour MPs, and may not reflect actual change.

Burnham is personally popular, but being Mayor of Manchester is generally an uncontroversial role: he can't raise taxes and he has limited power, but he can be noisey complaining about how the Westminster Government mistreats the north and also claim a share in the success for projects like the integrated transport system. Things people don't like in Manchester he can blame on Westminster.

While Burnham is a good communicator, he can't actually change the fundamentals for Labour in government: there is no spare money even after tax rises, the economy is growing slowly (or shrinking slowly factoring in inflation) which both severely limits what can be done. Many Labour MPs fear they will lose their seats in the next election, and can't see how to change things.

Burnham may be better at communicating how bad things are but I think realistically he will also become very unpopular, as the problem isn't the prime minister as much as the reality. "Manchesterism" as a political philosophy is fools gold.

I'd also add: Burnham chose not to stand in the last general election when he would have been a shoe-in as an MP. He has instead had to gamble now to become an MP as he's seen an opportunity to become PM. While is gamble paid off, I'm not sure that shows very good political judgement, and may be a warning about what's to come.

I think the only way the UK has of getting it of the mess they're in is to ditch their idiotic election system. They had the Tories in power for most of the last four decades and they've absolutely fucked up the place, while never actually having a majority of the vote. Burnham at least said he wants to do electoral reform so let's hope he comes through.