Labour winds are blowing towards Burnham – and Streeting knows it

Who said the Labour party needs “a battle of ideas, not of personalities or petty factionalism … It needs to be broad, and it needs the best possible field of candidates”?

Until this morning, almost everyone would have attributed those words to Andy Burnham, the mayor or Greater Manchester. But those were the closing paragraphs of the former health secretary Wes Streeting’s resignation letter, a cadence so similar to Burnham’s own that it cannot be accidental.

So is this the first glimmer of a deal between Labour’s two powerhouses – the soft left and the centrists?

Streeting might have once hoped he had the chance of a coronation but he does not have enough names to mount a challenge and Keir Starmer would fight him if he did. He was on the brink of utter humiliation. He knows which way the wind is blowing and it is blowing towards Manchester.

In order to challenge Starmer, Burnham still needs a seat in Westminster – a challenge that is proving quite hard to surmount. It might take him time to find one. But he is also the candidate who has the most support in the parliamentary party, the membership and in the country. No one thinks Starmer has the political authority now to block him via the party’s national executive committee.

So could there be a deal? It is a cliche to say that Burnham, who served under Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Jeremy Corbyn, has been on a political journey. In recent times, he has been the closest ally of the party’s left, a defender of those who were pursued by Starmer and Morgan McSweeney’s relentless factionalism.

Streeting has a hard-won reputation for being one of the most aggressive anti-Corbyn factionalists, but has recently himself begun to say publicly that even he has been uncomfortable with the way that party discipline has been exerted under Starmer – with the routine suspension of party rebels.

He said the briefings against Burnham – when the mayor sought to run in the Gorton and Denton byelection were “disgraceful.”

And they are both deeply concerned about Reform – and particularly about the rise of outlandish and routine far-right racism.

Although they would seem to be on opposite wings of the party, the two men have barely overlapped in parliament and have no known personal animosity towards each other.

That cannot be said for some of Burnham’s key supporters, including Ed Miliband and Lucy Powell. But Burnham and Streeting have spent time together on the campaign trail at the general election – and on joint health ventures during government.

Many of Streeting’s critics claim he was poised to launch a coup against Starmer from the second week of Labour coming to power. But there is a difference between ambition – and a lack of confidence in the party leader – and being prepared to wield the knife.