Britain has a new prime minister in waiting. Andy Burnham has wanted to lead the Labour Party for more than a decade, and now the deep unpopularity of the incumbent, Keir Starmer, has created a path to Downing Street for the Manchester mayor. Yesterday in Makerfield, a constituency outside Manchester in northern England, Burnham won a special parliamentary election that basically everyone understood to be both a referendum on Starmer's leadership and a test of his own ability to defeat the radical right. He won the by-election in a blowout, and is expected to challenge Starmer almost immediately'by pressuring him behind the scenes to resign or, failing that, by triggering a leadership contest. Either way, Burnham is highly likely to come out on top. The question for Britain is whether his easygoing charm and gift for communication will be enough to successfully lead a grumpy, stagnant country that has already had six prime ministers since the Brexit referendum in 2016. Burnham's...
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