I remember how pleased he was on General Election night back on 2015. It was a massive majority we secured in Leigh, Andy's constituency seat. Over 14,000 votes! While it was always a safe seat, Andy thought that we would be able to gauge Labour's national strength by on how we preformed in our heartlands. That increase of over 2,000 gave him some encouragement, and I can remember, clear as day, us talking about how we'd need to hit the ground running at the Department of Health. Andy back then was Labour's Shadow Health Secretary and had big ideas around integrating social care provision with the National Health Service (NHS). He knew he'd have plenty of opposition from people within the party like Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper, but he was determined that when Labour got back into government, it fulfilled the promises it was making to generations of people.
After Nuneaton's result though, all those ambitions came crashing down. The Conservative's victory there was not conceived in the Labour Leadership's most pessimistic predictions. Ed Miliband's staff, the current Leader of the Labour party, were on the phone seconds later making clear that they still thought we would be able to form some kind of agreement with the Scottish Nationalists and enter into a Minority Government. But Andy knew it was over as he looked to the TV screen and it showed the south of England covered in Conservative Blue, every single seat in Scotland that had so far been declared being awarded to the SNP, and in the North of England awarding huge swings to Nigel Farage's UKIP party. This wasn't like 1997, this wasn't even like 2005. Both Andy and I knew we weren't heading into Government, infact we were probably heading towards our worst result since the days of Michael Foot.
It had to be about 3am when Andy called me into his office and asked everyone else to leave. He had just been off the phone with Ed Balls, Labour's current Shadow Chancellor. Ed had just told Andy he was likely to lose his seat. I remember falling into the nearest seat, I was in total shock and Andy just looked at me in despair. Despite the fact he had run against both Ed Balls and Ed Miliband for the party's leadership, he had grown to respect them both immensely. The Guardian only days before had infact named Andy as one of Ed Miliband's staunchest allies, and for once the paper's had it spot on. I thought Andy might cry, he really believed both Eds would have made the country a better place. I expected his first words to me would be ones of shock and sorrow, but what came next shocked me.
Andy Burnham: David. I'm going to run for the Leadership of the Labour Party.
_______________________________________________________________
David Matheson was the Chief of Staff and Chairman of the Andy Burnham for Labour Leader campaign.
In this book, Burnham. The road to No.10, David explores Andy Burnham's leadership of the Labour Party. The trails and tribulations that he and his staff encountered in dealing with a party in opposition to a majority Conservative Government, fighting with a resurgent Scottish Nationalist Party that had all but conquered the birth place of Labour and a growing anti-europeanism that enthused UKIP in Labour's heartlands in the North of England and Wales.
I look forward to reading more. I was wondering how long it would take for someone to do a 2015 Labour Leadership TL, this is the first I have seen but I somehow doubt it will be the last.
To win the leadership, all he would need is for Corbyn to not be on the ballot, which could be accomplished in probably over a dozen different ways. He would probably win a three way contest between him, Cooper and Kendall, due to how he was the most left wing. What is probably harder is actually making people like him, the fallout of the welfare bill would hurt him with the left wing grassroots (unless the PoD is that he resigns to vote against it) and his reputation for flip flopping would eventually hurt him with the public once they get a good look at him.
I look forward to reading more. I was wondering how long it would take for someone to do a 2015 Labour Leadership TL, this is the first I have seen but I somehow doubt it will be the last.
To win the leadership, all he would need is for Corbyn to not be on the ballot, which could be accomplished in probably over a dozen different ways. He would probably win a three way contest between him, Cooper and Kendall, due to how he was the most left wing. What is probably harder is actually making people like him, the fallout of the welfare bill would hurt him with the left wing grassroots (unless the PoD is that he resigns to vote against it) and his reputation for flip flopping would eventually hurt him with the public once they get a good look at him.
The morning after the General Election was perhaps the most depressing experience of my life to date, we were so sure we could defeat David Cameron's Tories or at the very worst deny him an outright majority. We had failed to do both, lost Scotland possibly forever, saw the rise of UKIP across our Labour heartlands, and now had to attend the meeting where Ed Miliband was sure to tell us he was going to resign. Or that is what we at least thought.
It was around 8:30am on Friday morning (8th of May 2015), the whole Shadow Cabinet was summoned to Labour HQ in central London. Andy had brought me and Katy Myler, his former Special Advisor when in Government as Secretary of State for Health, down to Labour HQ with him. Katie was a communications expert and Andy had already let me know he wanted to bring her on as a key advisor during the leadership campaign. He thought it best to have her their during the meeting to advise him following what was sure to be Ed's resignation, I had thought it would look to obvious that he was preparing for the election. But it was a risk he was willing to take, and in the end it was without a doubt the right decision.
We got into HQ and it was clear that we were the last to arrive. I looked around to see a room filled with depression and young staffers wiping away their tears. Yvette Cooper, Labour's Shadow Home Secretary, was consoling her husband Ed Balls who had just lost his seat; Harriet Harman, Labour's Deputy Leader, was huddled with young staffers going over the final election results; Sadiq Khan, Labour's Shadow Justice Secretary, was in the corner withChukaUmunna, Labour's Shadow Business Secretary, arguing over the reasons for the defeat; Chris Leslie, Labour's Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and Rachel Reeves, Labour's Shadow Business Secretary, were discussing the bounce in the FTSE since the Tory majority had been announced; and Hilary Benn, Labour's Shadow Local Government Secretary, was arguing with Tim Livesey, Ed's Chief of Staff. All the big beasts were here dissecting the election and then I saw across the room in the leaders office, far on the other side of the open planned bloc, sat Ed Miliband with his closest advisor in the Cabinet Lucy Powell.
After a short time Lucy Powell invited all 20 odd shadow cabinet MPs into the leader's office to speak about the general election result in private. The room itself was huge, fitted with a massive table for the shadow cabinet to meet around. Each MP went into the room leaving their staff behind, Andy was the last to go in leaving Katie and I with one simple order - Find out who is running.
Katy was quickly off the mark speaking with Yvette and Chuka's people to see what the thoughts were of the Shadow Cabinet's big beasts in regards to the upcoming leadership contest. However, I was more concerned about what was going on in that meeting. It just seemed odd to me that Ed would have called for a private meeting, why didn't he want to make one last defiant statement to his troops before going outside to fall on his sword?
I spotted Torsten Bell, Ed's policy wizz-kid, sitting at his desk scribbling on bits of paper, so headed over to his desk. Why wasn't he consoling his staff or briefing the army of journalists just outside the doors? Something wasn't right.
Torsten Bell: "He wants to stay. He'd have won this election without the Nats. He wants to stay, David."
Leader of the Opposition: Ed Miliband
Deputy Leader of the Labour Party: Harriet Harman
Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer: Ed Balls
Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs: Douglas Alexander
Shadow Secretary of State for the Home Department: Yvette Cooper
Shadow Secretary of State for Justice: Sadiq Khan
Chief Whip: Rosie Winterton
Shadow Secretary of State for Health: Andy Burnham
Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills: Chuka Umunna
Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions: Rachel Reeves
Shadow Secretary of State for Education: Tristram Hunt
Shadow Secretary of State for Defence: Vernon Coaker
Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government: Hilary Benn
Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change: Caroline Flint
Shadow Leader of the House of Commons: Angela Eagle
Shadow Secretary of State for Transport: Michael Dugher
Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland: Ivan Lewis
Shadow Secretary of State for International Development: Mary Creagh
Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland: Margaret Curran
Shadow Secretary of State for Wales: Owen Smith
Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Maria Eagle
Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office: Lucy Powell
Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury: Chris Leslie
Mili-Ed probably should have remained as leader until the leadership election after deciding to step down IOTL. How long until he his pushed ITTL, though?
Have a little patience . I thought it would be a little more interesting to have things come out over time. Also in the TL right now we don't know the full results. Still a few outstanding seats at 8:30am.
Mili-Ed probably should have remained as leader until the leadership election after deciding to step down IOTL. How long until he his pushed ITTL, though?
There were many calls for him to stay on until a new leader had been elected. Given Harman's catastrophic decision not to oppose the Tories on their cuts to child benefit, which really launched Corbyn and doomed the others, I'm sure many continue to wish he'd stayed on for a spell.
From what Andy later told me, the meeting in the leader's office was extremely heated. Ed Balls was the most vocal in calling out Ed's idea to stay on, describing it as a last gasp attempt to cling onto power. While some of Ed's previously staunch allies like Chuka Umunna and Sadiq Khan remained suspiciously quiet, Ed did have true supporters in the room, like Harriet Harman and Lucy Powell. Yet, Ed knew he was always in control as no matter the bluster coming from people like Ed Ball, Yvette Cooper and Chuka Umunna, he knew they would never publicly try to oust him. "It's just not what we do", Andy said later to me on the drive back to his house in London. What the meeting did do however was give Miliband pause about trying to just carry on as normal. He knew with the hostility of the majority of the cabinet he couldn't publicly declare his intentions to stay on as leader to the press.
Instead following the meeting Ed's team organised individual meetings with all senior cabinet members, private meetings with just Ed in the leader of the opposition's office in Parliament. He then went out and announced to the press core that he did not intend to resign currently, instead he would speak with the whole parliamentary party to discuss how best to recover from this disappointing election results.
Ed Miliband: "Today the Labour Party has suffered defeat, but it is not fatal. I intend to listen and to learn, because this country needs a Labour Government."
Disaster. F**king disaster. That was all I could think of when I listened, and I know my thoughts were shared by about everyone in Labour HQ that wasn't part of the 'Cult of Miliband'.
********
It was a few days until Ed and Andy met with each other in the Leader's office. To say the media had been scathing about Ed's decision to not resign would be kind. Nigel Farage had done his 'resign then unresign' trick as Leader of UKIP, which had led to the press to continually contrast both Ed's and Nigel's positions, a contrast that was quite simply devastating. While David Cameron was going about appointed his majority Conservative Government, the Labour Party was in complete disarray.
Andy had already told me that the majority of the cabinet had told Ed they would not publicly support his decision to stay on as leader, Yvette and Chuka were already lining up nominations for a leadership election, and the press were mysteriously well informed on the current power struggle. We both knew that this meeting would be vitally important in determining whether or not there was going to be a leadership contest. Ed was in need of all the allies he could get and, as of yet, none of the rebel cabinet members were ready to stick the knife in.
Katy Myler, who was now officially hired as Andy's Director of Communications, argued that Andy should jocky for position at the meeting, try to get into a key position in the likely reshuffle of the shadow cabinet and wait until Ed inevitably has to resign. The logic of her argument was pretty solid. British political history tells us that the person who finally sounds to horn for a coup is never the person that emerges the victor, so she was fervently against the idea of Andy becoming an opposer to Ed staying on. But what she didn't understand was the current mind-set of Andy, he'd decided he wanted to run for leader and that desire wasn't going to be easily subdued. When he eventually met with Ed, he disregarded everything Katy and I had told him. He was firm, Ed had to resign.
The meeting went on for about an hour, sitting outside the office it was just Ed's chief of staff, Tim Livesey, and myself. Raised voices could be clearly heard between both men and I could just see the look of despair on Tim's face. It was pretty clear that this wasn't the first meeting Tim had heard raised voices emanate from.
Tim Livesey: "It's over isn't it? I mean, they are never going to accept him staying on are they?"
Me:
"No. No their not."
We had a pretty long conversation after that. Tim mentioned how even Harriet was telling Ed that the chances of staying on after a Michael Foot style defeat was inconceivable. Hell at this point Nick Clegg was probably polling higher than Ed, he having gracefully resigned. I could tell Tim knew the end was near, but it was made all the worse for his staff because they had genuinely thought that they could stay on. Ed's staff, despairingly described as the 'Cult of Ed', really were passionate believers in his leadership and the idea of him as Prime Minister, so it maybe wasn't to shocking that they had tried so hard to keep their boss in his job. But it was over, the senior members of the Party had already moved on from the idea of a Miliband Preimership. I later learned that Ed had even tried to offer both Yvette and Chuka the job as Shadow Chancellor to bring them back on board but it was no use. The time of Ed Miliband's leadership of the Labour was coming to an end, and it was clear a leadership contest was now upon us.
********
It was Friday the 15th of May when Ed gathered his Shadow Cabinet outside the steps of Labour HQ, over a week since his defeat at the General Election. The full British and international press core were in attendance waiting to hear from the now clearly departing Labour leader. Tears could be seen in the faces of many staffers and even on some of the shadow cabinet. Andy later told me that he felt like he had betrayed Ed as he stood behind him just watching as he announced his resignation. He said he felt like the whole shadow cabinet was on the edge of a cliff, each one of them giving Ed the little nudge required to push him off. The problem was Andy truly believed in Ed. But for me, his decision in refusing to back Ed staying on was his graduation into adult politics. If you are going to compete with the likes of Cameron and Osborne, you have to be as ruthless and emotionless as them. That was something Ed never had, but I honestly believed Andy could one day - alongside having the heart required to govern justly.
Ed Miliband: "Today I announce that I will officially resign as Leader of the Labour Party at our autumn conference. I have asked the General Secretary of the Labour Party to begin the process of organising a contest for the election of a new leader. I will continue as the Leader of the Labour Party until that contest concludes.
I simply leaned over to Katy at this point and said: "Game On".
Leader of the Opposition: Ed Miliband
Deputy Leader of the Labour Party: Harriet Harman
Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer: Chuka Umunna
Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs: Hilary Benn
Shadow Secretary of State for the Home Department: Yvette Cooper
Shadow Secretary of State for Justice: Andy Burnham
Chief Whip: Rosie Winterton
Shadow Secretary of State for Health: Owen Smith
Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills: Chris Leslie
Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions: Rachel Reeves
Shadow Secretary of State for Education: Tristram Hunt
Shadow Secretary of State for Defence: Vernon Coaker
Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government: Emma Reynolds
Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change: Caroline Flint
Shadow Leader of the House of Commons: Angela Eagle
Shadow Secretary of State for Transport: Michael Dugher
Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland: Ivan Lewis
Shadow Secretary of State for International Development: Mary Creagh Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport: Chris Bryant Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland: Ian Murry
Shadow Secretary of State for Wales: Nia Griffith
Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Maria Eagle
Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office: Lucy Powell
Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury: Stella Creasy
It will be interesting to see what a Burnham Shadow Cabinet would be like, and the man himself as leader of the opposition (probably not as radical as Corbyn, but that's not especially difficult).
Very good. Ed doesn't last long then. Shame as it would be interesting to see a TL where he does.
One nitpick though (Sorry). You don't have an interim Leader of the Opposition. Ed is leader until he resigns at the conference and he's Leader of the Opposition till then. Now in our timeline when Ed did resign, Harriet Harman as acting Leader was Acting Leader of the Opposition, but Ed until he resigns in the autumn remains LotO.
It will be interesting to see what a Burnham Shadow Cabinet would be like, and the man himself as leader of the opposition (probably not as radical as Corbyn, but that's not especially difficult).
Glad people are enjoying it. I'll keep this going until people either aren't interested or until we come to the conclusion of Andy's leadership/chance of leading the Labour Party.
One nitpick though (Sorry). You don't have an interim Leader of the Opposition. Ed is leader until he resigns at the conference and he's Leader of the Opposition till then. Now in our timeline when Ed did resign, Harriet Harman as acting Leader was Acting Leader of the Opposition, but Ed until he resigns in the autumn remains LotO.
True he is still Leader of the Opposition with it's full authority until autumn, thought just having interim in the title might make it easier for people to get his time is limited. But I take your point.
It was 5 days after Ed had announced he would step down and Andy had just been swore into Parliament as one of the newly re-elected MPs. He'd called a meeting of what would become the very core of his leadership campaign team in his Parliamentary offices in Westminister. He'd asked me to be "Chairman" of the leadership campaign, it seemed very American to me but he did it to ensure everyone knew no matter anyone else's fancy titles, when it came to overall strategy that I was in charge. In attendance was Michael Dugher, who Andy had named campaign manager, Katie Myler, the campaign's Director of Communications, John Lehal, who Michael brought in from the private sector to serve as Campaign Director, Torsten Bell, from Ed Miliband's office who Andy wanted to come on board as the major policy head, former Obama staffer Sam Graham-Felsen, the campaign's Director of New Media, and Sarah Beth, Andy's long time office manager.
I was slightly worried we were far to professionalise for a British Labour party election but Andy told me to stop worrying, as we had some of the best people in the profession on staff, but that was what worried me. Still, I put that to the back of my mind. During our first campaign team meeting everyone was a little buoyed by the fact that Chuka Umunna had already declared he was going to run and then pulled out of the election in the space of 4 days. The lines for leadership contenders were pretty well known: Yvette would announce in the next few days, Tristram Hunt was seeking out MPs to get on the ballot, the far left were trying to find a candidate, most in the room were convinced it would be John McDonnell, and Liz Kendall had already announced on TV that she was looking to contest the ballot as well.
We all left the meeting pretty clear that Yvette was going to be our main opponent but Andy seemed pretty happy with that. Everyone else in the race would be unknown's to the public whereas he was being seen clearly by the media as the clear front runner for the next Labour Leader. After the meeting however Torsten didn't seem to happy so I called him into my office while the rest went off to get ready for our campaign launch on Monday the 25th. Me:
Torsten what is wrong? Andy wants you in the campaign, he wants you leading our policy review, he's wanting you to head up our whole policy team. Your on to a good thing here T, this isn't Ed all over again.
Torsten:
You need to reform, Labour needs major, root and branch reform - or this party is dead.
It was a pretty spirited conversation with Torsten after that, but in reality I knew he was right before he even muttered the words. Andy was the right man to lead the Labour party, I knew this and I think Torsten knew this, but he was feeling the need to go to the centre of Labour Party thinking a plant his flag. With the Collins review, new members and supporters were flying into the party and they were wanting something different. We couldn't go back to the days of Blair, Brown or Miliband, if Andy was going to win both the support of the party and the country - we were going to have to develop and create something different. ********
The evening before the launch of Andy's campaign Torsten and I were still at war with Michael Dugher and John Lehal over the idea of putting a radical reform at the heart of Andy's leadership campaign. Michael swore that many of Andy's backers would bolt to the Kendall and Cooper camps if Andy was to radical, he needed to become the "sensible voice in the crowd". But Torsten and I said this was Andy's chance to truly break away from New Labour, Old Labour, Blue Labour, Red Labour and just get back to Labour being the party of the working class. Katy and Sam only wanted a decision on how we were to proceed, but Andy was torn. He later told me it was a heart and head moment, where everything he had ever been taught, coming through the ranks of the Labour party, was that the radical never wins and if by a miracle he does, it always ends in disaster. He didn't want to reach the top of the hill only for everything to come crashing down, but he didn't ever want to be in the position that Ed Miliband was. Knowing that maybe if he hadn't played things so safe, so "professional", that he might now well be in Downing Street, instead of on the slidelines having been outflanked in the centre by the Tories and outflanked on the left by the populism of UKIP and the SNP.
We had been debating this for about a week now and Andy just couldn't make up his mind, but he didn't have a choice now. We were getting ready to launch in less than 12 hours, we had two different campaign slogans, two different websites, two different sets of MPs ready to attend. Andy needed to choose which path he was going to take, was it one of reforming the Labour party or was it one of managing the current prospect as they were. Andy was not a gambler, he never had been and I knew that was drawing him to Dugher's position, but he was also a principled believer in left wing social democratic ideals and as I sat there listening to the arguments I just hoped that would be what would win out.
********
6:30am, Monday 25th of May. The day of Andy's campaign launch and I get the call from Sarah Beth, Andy's made a decision and wants to meet at his flat in London. I met Torsten as the Costa Coffee down the street to grab a drink before we went in, but we were pretty sure we knew that Andy was going to say. He'd no doubt stuck with Michael's ideas for the policy around the leadership campaign, I knew that before the end of the meeting the previous night, Andy had spoken to both Hilary Benn and Rachel Reeves. Andy saw both Hilary and Rachel as serving in major positions in his future cabinet and they weren't likely to be happy with the proposed radical new vision Torsten and I wanted Andy to undertake.
We got the Andy's flat to see Michael sitting with his head in his hands, Sam has a couple young interns rapidly bashing on their Mac's, John and Katy were speaking to journalists trying to make sure every major blogger and newspaper was going to be in attendance and over by the window was Andy. He looked over me and just smiled, I grabbed Torsten and we got to work on the speech. This had to be a speech that would both shake the establishment foundations in the Labour Party and become a rallying call to every disenfranchised labour supporter and young person in the country. This was do or die for both Andy and I.
A few hours later we were outside what once was Labour's HQ, John Smith House. The press certainly turned out, Sam had organised it so we were not broadcasting the event live on something call Periscope, I had not idea what it was but he ensured me it would allow Andy to speak directly to voters, and Michael had managed to ensure that some important MPs in Luciana Berger, Owen Smith and Ian Lavery were in attendance. Hilary Benn had phoned to say he wouldn't attend but was still willing to consider supporting Andy which was just what Andy needed to convince him he was doing the right thing.
Above the podium read in big bold writing, Not Old Labour, Not New Labour. Just Labour, the party of change.I was excited, I think we all were. Andy was about to do something very courageous, it could well spell the end of any hopes he ever had of becoming Prime Minister or it could start the long road to No.10. Here was hoping it was the latter, as the young crowd of labour activists we have gathered screwed applause as Andy took to the stage. Andy Burnham: Friends, the time of Old and New Labour is over. The divisions of the past must now be in the past. Labour is now Labour once again. I proud to say I am standing to be the Leader of the party of change and together, we can and will reform this country.
He tried before, didn't he? Twice IIRC and couldn't get the nominations. Maybe this time he might a la Corbyn where his colleagues seek a 'fair contest' and see how that backfires on them!
. I thought it would be a little more interesting to have things come out over time. Also in the TL right now we don't know the full results. Still a few outstanding seats at 8:30am.