Andy Burnham was accused of behaving like a ‘Prime Minister in waiting’ last night.
The self-styled ‘King of the North’ posed at the start line of the Great Manchester Run yesterday, before flexing his muscles for the waiting cameras.
Mr Burnham, who is hoping to return to the Commons in this month’s Makerfield by-election, showed off his tattoo of the city’s worker bee symbol and went on to cross the finish line of the 10km route in 53 minutes.
But his lack of answers for the country’s problems came under fire, with Tory sources saying Mr Burnham’s hubris reminded them of former Labour leader Neil Kinnock, whose over-confident performance at a Sheffield rally was blamed for his party’s surprise loss in the 1992 election.
Conservative Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake said last night that Mr Burnham should stop ‘parading around Manchester like a Prime Minister in waiting’.
He added: ‘Running a good race and running the country are very different things.
‘Andy Burnham’s race was a genuine effort for a worthy cause, and that deserves to be acknowledged. But he’s shown far more interest in positioning himself for the top job than in offering serious answers to the serious challenges Britain faces.
‘On defence spending, on economic growth, on accountability for his own record, the questions are piling up and every time he tries to give us an answer he backtracks a couple of days later.
Andy Burnham posed at the start line of the Great Manchester Run yesterday, before flexing his muscles for the waiting cameras
Burnham was raising money for gym equipment for a specialist NHS inpatient detox service in Prestwich which helps adults battling drug and alcohol addiction
‘Tony Blair himself has now cast doubt on Burnham’s economic vision. When your own party’s most successful leader can’t back your prospectus, that should give voters pause.
‘Burnham is parading around Manchester like a Prime Minister in waiting, but what he doesn’t realise is the race is far from over.
‘His behaviour is verging on cockiness and complacency, which will only serve to backfire whether he wins or loses.’
Greater Manchester mayor Mr Burnham – whose tattoo also represents solidarity with the victims of the 2017 Manchester Arena suicide bombing – finished 3,771st out of a field of 20,000, with his time ranking him 145th in his age category.
He was raising money for gym equipment for a specialist NHS inpatient detox service in Prestwich which helps adults battling drug and alcohol addiction, with more than £1,400 pledged last night. Mr Hollinrake’s takedown of Mr Burnham came after former prime minister Tony Blair criticised his claim that Britain’s economic woes are due to ’40 years of neo-liberalism’, branding his thinking ‘odd’.
Mr Burnham is pitching himself as a hard-Left candidate intent on tearing up the economic status quo and instituting a radical programme of nationalisation and tax hikes.
But yesterday Sir Tony again waded into Labour’s leadership crisis, ridiculing claims that Britain was a haven of neo-liberal economics.
Writing in The Observer, Sir Tony said: ‘The prevalent view on the Left is that the financial crisis gave rise to populist sentiment, showing that ‘neo-liberal’ economics failed and led to stagnant wages.
‘Leave aside the fact that a country where almost half our national income is spent by the state is an odd form of neo-liberalism, we should be cautious about treating populism as a consequence simply of economics.’
Burnham attended a traditional Saturday breakfast club in Ashton-in-Makerfield to meet with retired miners and local organisers on May 30
This weekend, Angela Rayner was out on the doorstep in Manchester campaigning for Mr Burnham’s by-election hopes
In a speech widely interpreted as his Labour leadership launch, Mr Burnham said the Makerfield by-election was a chance for a ‘much bigger debate about how politics needs to change’.
He said: ‘My core argument is this: Britain, if you look at the last 40 years… has been on the wrong path. Forty years on the wrong path, a path that has damaged communities across the North. It all adds up to 40 years of neo-liberalism that have not been kind to the North of England.
‘That system has siphoned wealth out of those places.’
This weekend saw Angela Rayner, another potential contender in the race to succeed Keir Starmer, out on the doorstep in Manchester campaigning for Mr Burnham’s by-election hopes.
Ms Rayner described it as a ‘glorious day’.
But Mr Burnham received a blow this weekend, with a poll showing that Labour would be beaten by Reform UK if he were leading the party into a general election.
BMG research found that Reform would have a three-point lead over a Burnham-led Labour Party, with the two sitting at 23 per cent and 20 per cent respectively.
But despite the ominous polling, it was reported Mr Burnham is weighing up calling a snap general election if he becomes leader, in order to capitalise on any short-term boost his ascension causes to Labour’s poll rating.
A senior Labour source told The Sun on Sunday: ‘Andy is considering an early general election. They are war-gaming it. But Labour MPs would absolutely hate it.
‘They are worried about losing their seats.’
