Burnham’s vow to end Labour briefing wars will test his grip on the party

From the publisher

Andy Burnham’s vision for cleaning up Westminster politics is a utopian one: ending the dominance of the whipping system, Whitehall power hoarding and the “insidious briefing culture” of the bubble. In his first speech on becoming Labour leader, he warned his party it “won’t beat Britain’s new right if we are consumed by infighting and pulling in different directions”. Burnham is not wrong to try to weed out some of the endemic problems of factionalism in British politics that result in power struggles, rather than a focus on where agreement can be found. But the tensions between his aims are already there: to end the culture of briefing between politicians…

The source's own excerpt, unedited