Alistair Campbell

Would you have blocked Burnham?

If I'd have thought that he was doing this...

In order to get a seat, in order to mount a challenge against Keir Starmer, I think I probably would.

Okay.

They're kind of saying that.

It's not just another election.

It's the mayoralty election, which is like 20-odd by-elections.

You're talking millions.

You are talking millions.

And, you know, I think in politics, it's usually wise to get as close as possible to the truth.

But the reason why I say that I think there's been a fault on both sides here is that there should have been a relationship and a series of conversations that prevented this from happening.

I think Andy Burnham knew that when he put his name forward, he was going to be blocked.

Now, I actually think Andy's weakened himself because if you go around – if I was a voter in Manchester now, I'm sort of thinking, this guy doesn't actually want this job as much as he wants another job.

And the other thing I think that's happened is that – so you've got to – this is happening because Andrew Gwynne, Labour MP, stepping down –

For a scandal, proper scandal.

Scandal slash, calls it health reasons, stepping down, by-elections happening, in a seat that is pretty tricky for two reasons.

Well, for one reason, this seat in Manchester is going to be, there's a part of it that is very, very susceptible to the Greens, and there's a part of it that is very susceptible to reform.

Now, where there is a case for Andy Burnham is that if you looked at the markets and what they were saying about this seat, if Andy Burnham was the candidate...

Labour was something like 38, 30 odd percent, 36, 38 percent on to win, and Reform and Greens were sort of 20s.

That's been flipped.