Who is Andy Burnham? The Trump critic set to become the UK's next prime minister

Andy Burnham hasn't even won a general election and he's already being handed the keys to Downing Street by his own party's headcount. Three hundred and twenty two MP nominations on the first day tells you everything about how this works now. It's not a vote of the British public, it's a coronation dressed up as a leadership contest, and somehow the press coverage is treating it like a formality rather than a story.

The part that should bother anyone paying attention is the scrutiny gap. Every recent occupant of that office walked in under a microscope, past record picked apart, every old quote dredged up. Burnham, by most honest accounts, is getting a pass. That's not a compliment to him, it's an indictment of how lazy the vetting process has become when a party is desperate for someone who can win an election rather than someone who's actually been tested.

We've heard plenty about Burnham being a Trump critic, which apparently counts as a credential in some circles now. Fine. But being anti-Trump isn't a governing philosophy, it's a talking point, and it tells British voters almost nothing about what he'd actually do with the job. If he's going to run the country, the least the public deserves is the same rough treatment his predecessors got before the removal vans showed up.

There's a lesson in here for Americans too. Parties that anoint favorites without a real fight tend to hand voters someone untested and overconfident. A coronation isn't a mandate, no matter how many nominations you collect on day one.