𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Burnham is only PM because predecessor Keir Starmer was such a flop, allowing him to run the country off the back of just 24,927 Mancunian voters in Makerfield. He wants to do radical things, but lacks a mandate to do them. An election victory would transform that, giving him five years to bend the country to his will. And there are other pressing reasons why he might call a snap election, possibly before Christmas or early in the spring.

Right now, Burnham is hemmed in by a Labour manifesto he had no say in writing. It includes a pledge not to increase the big three taxes: income tax, National Insurance or VAT. That makes it hard to raise serious money for his planned transformation of social care and dream of building loads of new council houses. If he won an election based on his own manifesto, there’d be nothing to hold him back.

Burnham has another reason to consider a snap election. His political honeymoon is just about holding up. Labour is leading in the polls, Green Party voters are giving up on Zack Polanski, and the right-wing vote is split between Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and Kemi Badenoch’s Tories. Farage has been knocked by the row over crypto donations. Badenoch is winning admirers, but still has a long way to go. This could be a good time for Burnham to go over the top, while his opponents are weak and divided.

But there’s a problem. There’s absolutely no way he’ll match Labour’s 2024 landslide, which left Labour with more than 400 MPs. That was a freak result, largely driven by voters wanting to punish the Tories after 14 years of failure, rather than enthusiasm for what Starmer was offering.

After more than two years of left-wing tax and spend, the electorate’s appetite for another five years may be rather dimmed. Burnham can survive that, provided he wins a substantial majority, but many of his MPs won’t. Even if Labour forms the next government, they won’t be part of it. They’re likely to be mown down in platoons. It could be a bloodbath.

Understandably, many won’t relish the prospect. Especially those with wafer-thin majorities, and there are plenty of them. Labour won a staggering 131 seats with majorities below 5,000, leaving them highly vulnerable. There could be a lot of grumpy MPs if Burnham calls an election, knowing he’s just truncated their spell at Westminster.

There’s also the risk Labour won’t win at all. Rather than becoming a transformative leader, Burnham could end up a historical footnote. The PM who blew himself up, and took his party with him. But he might still go for it, and here’s why.

The UK economy is on the brink, and it isn’t alone. The US, France, Germany, Japan and a host of other countries are also struggling. Inflation is rising, an energy shock is looming, and the IMF is urging Britain to make spending cuts to balance the books. If crisis intensifies, it could finish Burnham’s honeymoon for good.

So the PM may have to go for that snap election, even at the risk of sacrificing his own backbench MPs. Because if he dithers, the slaughter could be even worse. Calling a snap election would be brave. It might also be brutal. Burnham may decide he has to do it anyway.