At last! There’s a bit of British spunk about the Labour leadership contest. Andy Burnham has accused his rivals of smearing him. The finger of suspicion points at Ed Balls - given past form and his natural proclivities. Burnham and Balls are fighting for a similar constituency – both are running broadly ‘traditional’ tickets. Both are struggling. Balls has 5 Constituency L...

Andy Burnham’s leadership campaign is going the way of all flesh. According to Left Foot Forward’s model, Burnham is set to come fourth behind Ed Balls. A You Gov poll predicts a similarly poor showing for Burnham. I’m surprised by this. Against a field of gawky rivals, Burnham is presentable. Also, after a faltering start, he has tuned a clear anti-establishment message, crafted...

Labour leadership candidate Andy Burnham has dismissed suggestions that it is a "two-horse race" between David and Ed Miliband.

Andy Burnham just gave his conference speech - and it went down very well on the floor. Mr Balls stretches out his beer gut in preparation for the match Being in charge of the so-called Department for Fun and Games has had its perks for a culture secretary's profile: Olympic golds and free theatre tickets tend to go down better than escaped prisoners and economic woe. Burn...

Remember how earlier in the year we were amused to watch Schools Secretary Ed Balls and Culture Secretary Andy Burnham playing on a swing?Well since it is technically silly season now, I feel it's time for another bout of watching Ed Balls pretending he's back at school again.I am alerted to this video of him on Youtube which features him skipping, promoting the work of Skip2bfit, ...

After recently watching them on a Channel Four News debate, I was surprised at the caliber of two of the candidates for the Labour Party leadership. Out of the five, David Miliband and Andy Burnham have clearly modeled their political persona on Tony Blair, having said this, each of the other three, Ed Miliband, Ed Balls and Diane Abbott would fit comfortable into a pre Blair Labour Party. What su...

Whilst Ed Balls descends into bellicose self-caricature, Andy Burnham, the quiet man of this campaign, has written an incendiary article for the Guardian. It is subtly constructed: behind the veneer of his folksy idiom, Burnham proclaims a self-conscious radicalism. He has sharpened some of the ideas expressed so loosely in his pamphlet Aspirational Socialism. He advocates the adoption of land val...

One of the mildly diverting features of the Labour leadership contest so far is this nominations counter on the party website.  Ed Miliband was the first to pass the crucial 33 nominations barrier yesterday, while David Miliband managed it earlier today.  Ed Balls is still lagging behind on 14, Andy Burnham has 8, and poor John McDonnell and Diane Abbott both have none.  Yep, the ex...

Another Sunday, another Labour leadership contender on Marr. But Andy Burnham’s performance this morning did him few favours. His argument for his candidacy seems to be that because he’s northern and from a working class background he’d be a better leader than either of the Milibands or Ed Balls. The limitations around Burnham’s candidacy were exposed when the question of i...

There is a token candidate for the Labour Party leadership who struggled to get enough nominations to stand and who has no chance of winning. His name is "Andy Burnham". Ed Balls has more support amongst MPs.