Burnham ‘ready to lead’ after landslide Manchester victory

ANDY BURNHAM has told Labour “I’m here” if it needs him as leader after a landslide victory to retain his position as mayor of Greater Manchester.

The former Labour MP was backed by 67.3 per cent of voters, increasing his majority almost 4 per cent from 2017.

Mr Burnham said: “If the party were ever to feel it needed me, well I’m here and they should get in touch. I have tried twice to be leader and it has never worked, so I’m not under any illusions.”

His win was one Labour’s few successes in this week’s elections, with strong performances in mayoral elections and its North West strongholds around Manchester and Liverpool immune to Conservative gains on the opposite coast.

The party remain in control of most of the councils in Greater Manchester including Wigan, Bury, Oldham, Salford, Rochdale, Tameside and Trafford.

Outside its usual strongholds, the party managed to make inroads further south, with the Tories seeing cracks in some of their former strongholds.

Though the Tories held control of Surrey and West Sussex councils, they lost 14 and 8 seats respectively.

Other blue councils saw even more severe slides as they moved to no overall control. The Conservatives lost their majority on the Isle of Wight, with

Labour and Liberal Democrat gains. In Cambs, the party lost eight councillors along with control of the county council. In the East of England, the Conservatives saw a poorer performance than they were seeing nationally.

Though the Tories held on to Gloucs and Devon county councils, they lost three councillors across each in the West of England.

Wilts also saw further losses, with eight councillors losing their seats, while nine were picked up by the Liberal Democrats. These losses were seen most starkly as Labour won the region’s mayoral race with the party taking the post from the Conservatives.

Dan Norris won with almost 60 per cent of the vote, with turnout going up by 6.8 per cent.

The former Labour MP, who served as part of both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s government, credited Sir Keir Starmer for “unlocking” the region for Labour, after losses across its former heartlands. “I’m very proud of our region. But it could be even better. I want to thank Keir Starmer, who has unlocked this election for Labour in the west of England,” he said.

“Without him and his skills, his determination and him being who he is, we could not have got this result.

“People were able to listen to our arguments and be persuaded by them because of Keir Starmer.

“I’ll hit the ground running with a jobs and skills summit in my first 100 days and launch my green recovery plan. As we build back from the pandemic, invest in jobs and our high streets, let’s create a society where we keep looking out for each other and value what’s truly important.”

This success was replicated in its mayoral successes in the North, with Ros Jones, Joanne Anderson and Paul Dennett winning in Doncaster and Liverpool and Salford by a margin of over 10,000 votes.

For the regional mayoral contests, Labour again held on to the Liverpool City Region, with Steve Rotherham picking up almost 200,000 votes, with turnout going up by 3.6 per cent.

On the east coast, Labour managed to avoid further defeats like Hartlepool and the Tees Valley by holding the North Tyneside mayor race.

Norma Redfearn was elected with an increased majority of 13,753 as well as seeing turnout increase by 8.1 per cent.