What is trending online this week?
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk with Aviva Insurance. Now I'm joined in the studio by broadcaster Ciarán Halpin to go through what's trending online this week. You're very welcome.
Thank you, Clare. Good morning. How are you?
We are going to start with a political phenomenon online. Who is this political phenomenon?
Well, I think you're going to be hearing a lot more about this man, probably going to be the next British Prime Minister, Andy Burnham in his name. And let me tell you, he has taken social media by absolute storm. And it's not because he's giving massive political stump speeches. He's being, hold on to your socks here, a normal person on social media. He is doing some amazing things. He's basically got a social media person who was behind the Ed Miliband fandom that kicked off a couple of years ago.
When she was only 17, right?
Yes, exactly.
So now she's back running his account.
What political phenomenon is trending online this week?
I believe, though, she tried to help Keir Starmer out and that just didn't work.
It didn't work. And you know what? It only took Keir Starmer to actually be non-leader of the Labour Party anymore for people to start going, oh...
Who is Andy Burnham and why is he gaining popularity?
I kind of connect with this guy now, which is actually what Andy Burnham is learning from. He learned from the fact that Ed Miliband, Keir Starmer, had no connection to anybody in the British establishment. And he has now decided, I'm going to be a normal person. He doesn't wear a tie for a start. He's very much wants people to be, I'm a normal northern guy. He's posting about football. He's posting about, he's doing trends on TikTok. It's amazing.
You see, we can look at it and go, isn't he great? He's so normal. Or we can say, well, this is all very contrived. And we leave it up to people to make a judgment on that. But let's have a listen to some of the content he's been posting. So he's been commenting on the memes that are made about him.
So just about to head home after a pretty big week in Westminster.
How is Andy Burnham using social media to connect with voters?
The best bit, who put Z cars to me walking into Swerin in Parliament? That was absolutely genius. Back up the road for a big weekend in my new constituency, Makerfield. So we'll see you all there.
And then when the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, said that Andy's just all eyelashes and a black T-shirt, he put up a video of him batting his eyelashes and saying this.
It's dark blue, actually.
You see, it sounds like he's having a laugh, Ciarán. That's what people like about it.
He does. And I wonder if he's a Father Ted fan, because the very famous Father Ted line where they said priest socks, they think people, lay socks are very, very black. And he says, no, no, lay people socks are actually very, very dark blue. Only priest socks are dark black.
Maybe he's a Father Ted fan. We established that back in the 90s or maybe even the 2000s. So what do you think? I mean, do you think he's genuine or is he just being well managed here?
I think it's a little bit of both. I think he's got a very, very savvy social media manager. But from what I've seen of him, and I didn't know too much about him before, and I have spent a lot of time on his TikTok. He's got over 90,000 followers on TikTok now, which is massive for a politician. I think he is kind of being quite genuine. Now, will that change if he becomes the leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister? It'll have to change. But yeah, you know what? I'm going to be non-cynical and say this is the real Andy Burnham.
90,000 is quite low-fi, isn't it?
It is, but he'll build that up. He's only Mayor of Manchester at the minute. He's just now back in as an MP. All his videos are doing quite well, like 100,000, 80,000, 90,000 views all the time. This man is going to be all over your For You page.
They're ready. Let's compare Andy Burnham to some of our politicians trying to do the same thing. So we had Simon Harris posting this this morning.
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