Andy Burnham in ‘Downing Street North’ [Lauren Hurley / No 10 Downing Street]

ANDY Burnham may have seen Labour’s poll ratings bounce since taking over as prime minister, but he may have to do a little more convincing in his predecessor’s patch.

New council leader Sagal Abdi-Wali said in an interview with the New Journal that she was supportive – but felt that Holborn and St Pancras MP Sir Keir Starmer had deserved more time than the two years he had in Downing Street before being pressured to leave by Labour MPs.

She said she didn’t want Mr Starmer to now stand down as an MP for the area.

Mr Burnham, meanwhile, hit the wrong note with one of Mr Starmer’s allies, Hampstead and Highgate MP Tulip Siddiq, with a reshuffle of roles which went right down to the Labour MPs working as parliamentary private secretaries (PPS).

“It’s been extremely frustrating to see so many competent people unceremoniously sacked from government,” she tweeted this week.

“This latest list showing sacked PPS makes me despair because PPSing is not a glamorous job and MPs just got on with it, put in the hours and would have been an asset to any Labour government. Not to mention that the first black woman ever to be a PPS to a Prime Minister was removed.”

She was referring to Abena Oppong-Asare, who Mr Burnham could find no room for in his new team.

Mr Burnham’s supporters said that hiring decisions were not – and should not be – based on race. Some have said that Mr Burnham has only acted as Mr Starmer did when assembling his preferred team.

Ms Siddiq, however, has commented more widely on Labour’s long run of white men as the party’s chosen leaders.

His switch-up was characterised as a purge of Mr Starmer’s closest allies, although Mr Burnham had insisted he would put an end to Labour’s famous penchant for in-fighting and factionalism.

There has been concern among some long-term members that Mr Burnham and his allies are re-writing history or forgetting some of Mr Starmer’s achievements as prime minister.

Former Labour councillor Edmund Frondigoun, who has pledged to be franker than ever to his online followers after losing his seat in Somers Town back in May, said: “I know folk think they are terribly clever treating this as year zero, but this 40 years of neoliberalism schtick doesn’t work when the new PM was actually a party to nine of those years.”

He added with a touch of sarcasm: “Overinflated housing market, crippling social care demands and Brexit? No, not enough North.”

One of the least compromising responses to Mr Burnham’s takeover has come from Maddy Raman, a former Labour council election candidate in Camden who branded the opening of the ‘Number 10 North’ office as a “gimmick” and twice used his X account to call Mr Burnham a “clown”.

Other labels were “duplicitous” and “self-serving”.

He wrote: “Starmer was bullied out of his job by being constantly briefed against and being undermined. The PM [Mr Starmer] has achieved more in two years than what Burnham will during the rest of this parliament.”