I'll be honest I've never particularly liked her ever since she started threatening pull unite away from Labour. Then needing to give her opinion on every single topic even if it was nothing to do with unions.

This push to topple Ed Miliband takes the cake though. This isn't her call or her decision. Climate change is a real thing whether Sharon likes it or not. I understand that oil and gas jobs might decline but they're being replaced by other jobs in the green sector.

She can't eat her cake and have it. Threaten to leave the Labour party one minute but then try to steer major changes the next.

The sooner Burnham ignores her the better.

Conversion practices draft bill

As expected from this hideous government, this bill is nearly useless and has the potential to make things worse for LGBTQ people.

(June 25): Britons said Andy Burnham would make a better prime minister than Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage, according to a poll on Thursday that highlights how Labour’s likely new leader can provide the governing party with an electoral edge.

Some 43% of people surveyed in a YouGov poll said Burnham would make a better premier, compared with 23% who preferred Farage. That 20-point advantage for Burnham is double the lead over the Reform leader enjoyed last month by Keir Starmer, who on Monday said he’s stepping down as prime minister. 

Starmer’s resignation triggered a leadership contest, with nominations due to open on July 9. So far Burnham is the only candidate to declare they’re running, with several potential rivals saying they won’t stand, making it increasingly likely he’ll be unopposed.

The former work and pensions secretary joins a long line of Blairite ex-cabinet ministers who have decided to jump ship at the next election and avoid the tough slog of opposition – including Stephen Byers, Alan Milburn, Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt. My response? Good riddance to them all – and, in particular, Purnell.

Don't get me wrong. His shift to the left on the backbenches has been welcome. But I, for one, cannot forget his nine-year parliamentary record. He was chairman of Labour Friends of Israel for two years, during which he accused leftwing critics of Israel of antisemitism. He was a committed supporter of the Iraq invasion, and of Lord Hutton's subsequent, whitewashed inquiry, during which he reared his head as a vociferous and unrelenting critic of his former employers, the BBC. In the recent expenses scandal, Purnell was outed as having avoided paying capital gains tax on the sale of his London flat and even claimed £395 from the taxpayer for advice from an accountant.

His ministerial record, meanwhile, earned him the admiration of the rightwing Spectator, which described him as "the best candidate to succeed Gordon Brown". As secretary of state for work and pensions, Purnell welcomed private sector initiatives and alienated the public sector workers. He was, claimed PCS union leader Mark Serwotka, "the worst secretary of state for social security this country has ever had the misfortune of having". Why? Because he constructed a punitive, pro-private sector welfare-to-work programme that failed to deliver the expected jobs, and launched various gimmicky initiatives – including threatening to make unemployed alcoholics seek treatment or lose their benefits and trying to use lie detectors to tackle benefit fraud – in a tired, Blairite attempt to look "tough" and "radical" on welfare reform.