Burnham plotted and schemed and has compounded his overweeningly ambitious activity by lying about it

Throughout his push to return to Westminster and challenge for national leadership, Andy Burnham and his allies repeatedly pushed back against the narrative that he was actively scheming to overthrow Keir Starmer.

Despite the public denials and dismissals of “plotting,” Burnham openly mounted a direct challenge by running in the Makerfield by-election with the explicit platform to “change Labour.” Following his landslide victory in that by-election, the political momentum became insurmountable, causing Starmer to resign and clear the path for Burnham to step into No. 10.

By highlighting that he was outside the Parliamentary Labour Party, Burnham attempted to defuse accusations of “backstroom plotting” and “scheming,” framing the unfolding crisis as an internal Westminster issue rather than something he was actively orchestrating from afar.

So the obvious conclusion we must draw is that we will shortly have an unelected Prime Minister whose accession to the job was a direct consequence of plotting and manoeuvres that he drove. Further that he is denying this obvious truth with provably mendacious statements. I can find no precedent in modern British history of such scheming and denial.