{"id":329211,"date":"2026-07-23T05:35:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T05:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=329211"},"modified":"2026-07-25T05:48:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T05:48:15","slug":"lets-talk-aboutandy-burnham-the-uks-newest-puppet-in-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=329211","title":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s talk about\u2026Andy Burnham, the UK\u2019s Newest Puppet-in-Chief"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Off-Guardian \u2013 July 21, 2026<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>As of yesterday morning, the United Kingdom has a new Prime Minister, and his name is Andy Burnham.<\/p>\n<p>In a startlingly low-Democracy effort, even by modern standards, a sitting MP resigned his safe seat so Andy Burnham could \u201ccontest\u201d a by-election with the express purpose of ousting Sir Keir Starmer as Labour leader.<\/p>\n<p>Less than 30,000 votes \u2013 that\u2019s the Burnham democratic mandate.<\/p>\n<p>And ever since that transition became inevitable, the PR machine has been working overtime to sell us the kind of \u201csimple, decent\u201d image.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve been told how he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/politics\/2026\/07\/17\/andy-burnham-milk-first-when-making-tea\/\">likes his tea<\/a> (milk first), that he\u2019s not going to wear a tie outside Parliament, and witnessed his (totally not staged) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/watch\/?v=1664337867959307\">little one-on-ones<\/a> with the public.<\/p>\n<p>For his first speech outside Number 10, he waved the lectern away, and just had a good old chinwag\u2026<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">I don\u2019t use a lectern either! OMG he\u2019s just like me! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/VouMeEcHIE\">https:\/\/t.co\/VouMeEcHIE<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 OffGuardian (@OffGuardian0) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/OffGuardian0\/status\/2079294370323288394?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 20, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s all a very David Brentish, \u201cJust call me Andy\u201d vibe. Like a substitute teacher who sits backwards on his chair and uses the word \u201cjam\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The \u201cI\u2019m so nice\u201d PR extended into policy already. Having left poor, boring Keir to <a href=\"https:\/\/off-guardian.org\/2026\/07\/14\/quick-take-uk-to-announce-social-media-curfew\/\">finish off the bad news last week<\/a>, good old Andy has jumped at the chance to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2026\/jul\/21\/burnham-announces-plans-to-cut-vat-on-electricity-bills-as-first-cost-of-living-move\">end VAT on energy bills<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c5y08z25q8eo\">\u201cscrap\u201d digital ID<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>His cabinet is, naturally, the same old faces in different jobs. Wes Streeting has been paid off for refusing to contest a leadership election he would have lost with the Defence Secretary job. Ed Miliband moves from Energy to Foreign Secretary. Yvette Cooper is still around somewhere.<\/p>\n<p>As we\u2019re fond of saying, the British Cabinet has ever been a game of musical chairs where nobody ever takes a chair away.<\/p>\n<p>Burnham\u2019s spouting Corbyn-lite \u201cnew politics\u201d, but it will be meaningless in the end. A puppet who doesn\u2019t wear a tie is very much still a puppet.<\/p>\n<p>But maybe you disagree.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Will Burnham last longer than his predecessors?<\/li>\n<li>Do you buy his \u201cman of the people\u201d schtick?<\/li>\n<li>Has Digital ID REALLY been \u201cscrapped\u201d?<\/li>\n<li>Will Burnham reverse any other Starmer-era policies?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Discuss in the comments below.<\/p>\n<p>Continues with comments at <a href=\"https:\/\/off-guardian.org\/2026\/07\/21\/lets-talk-about-andy-burnham-the-uks-newest-puppet-in-chief\/\">Off-Guardian<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Support Off-Guardian:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ko-fi.com\/offguardian\">Ko-fi<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.subscribestar.com\/offguardian\">Subscribestar<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.paypal.com\/donate\/?hosted_button_id=CKFB3MH8CGB9U\">Paypal<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ever since Burnham\u2019s move to Number Ten Downing Street became inevitable, the PR machine has been working overtime to sell us a \u201csimple, decent\u201d image.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":329212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-329211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Current_Affairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=329211"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":329213,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329211\/revisions\/329213"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/329212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=329211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=329211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=329211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}