WHERE'S THE OPPOSITION?

摘要

A month ago, Andy Burnham launched his personal manifesto for the Labour leadership. Alongside the re-nationalisation of the railways, the centrepiece was a rejection of "the growing market of free schools and academies" As the main article illustrates, he remains an advocate of the Building Schools for the Future programme - but such is Labour's mess that such important messages have been lost in tragically drawn-out introspection. Burnham is one of politics' nice guys: someone who laughs away digs that he looks like a Thunderbird because of eyelashes that appear to be permanently buried under a thick layer or two of mascara. Reminded that his wife, Marie-France van Heel, once tweeted that his chief opponent, health secretary Jeremy Hunt, looked "bloody awful" during a TV interview, Burnham jokes "that's nothing" compared to what she says about him.