By Kate Nicholson

Copyright huffingtonpost

Andy Burnham took a series of shots at both Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves during a lively interview today at the Labour Party conference.

The Labour mayor of Greater Manchester has been publicly challenging the prime minister’s leadership over the last week, sparking speculation he might be planning a coup.

He has been smacked down repeatedly by the government, but doubled down on his comments during a live recording of the Guardian’s podcast.

While insisting he had only launched a plan to attack Reform UK, the mayor took aim at Starmer again and again and again in the one-hour exchange.

Here’s a look at his main criticisms of the Downing Street plan…

1. Party management

Within minutes of the interview starting, Burnham was promoting the Blair-Brown years – and claiming he was “struggling to think of people who lost the whip then”.

He added: “There was a feeling that all people from across the party were important.”

But now, he claimed, “there’s too much of a narrow and factional way of running the party.”

He later added: “We shouldn’t be in this position that if you like a tweet by someone from the Green Party that somehow means you’re suspended from Labour membership.”

2. Basic governance

The government also needs to turn good ideas into “practical changes in people’s lives”, according to Burnham.

He insisted that Labour “need to put forward a popular left offer” right now to help challenge the rise of the far-right.

“We need more independence when it comes to the way the party’s been run,” he claimed.

3. Economy

Burnham previously accused the government of being “too in hock to the bond market”, so the chancellor hit back on Monday by warning conference that Burnham’s economic ideas were “dangerously wrong”.

He then told the Guardian: “I reject entirely this idea that I’m hopeless and I have no idea how to make it add up. I’m doing it every day [in Manchester].”

He added: “There’s nothing about me that say I would just throw that money everywhere.”

He also went after Reeves’ strict fiscal rules, claiming: “You need strong fiscal rules but I wouldn’t say exactly in their current form.

“I think you need a more flexible approach in regard to some of them.”

4. Refused to completely reject speculation over leadership bid

Burnham dodged questions about whether Labour MPs had actually asked him to challenge Starmer, a claim which emerged from an interview he did with The Telegraph last week.

He said: “I didn’t say that Labour MPs are encouraging me to run. A lot of the last few days has come from an inaccurate and overwritten article.”

But, when pressed, he refused to say if anyone had actually asked him to go up against the PM, simply replying: “I’m not going to say every conversation I have with every MP.

“I can’t launch a leadership campaign – I’m not an MP. I’m putting forward ideas that in any scenario, whoever is the leader, I think Labour needs to take on board.”

5. Two-child benefit cap

Burnham also poked the deep bruise of the two-child benefit cap, a Tory policy Labour controversially held onto last year – even suspending the seven MPs who voted against it.

As backbenchers continue to call for the government to drop it altogether, Burnham said it is “immoral”.

He added: “It should go and we should make that a priority.”

Burnham said the government needs to start calling out the “disaster” Brexit has been more directly.

He claimed: “Let’s start being honest with people – immigration reform has weakened due to Brexit. Let’s get confident on this.”

7. Digital IDs

He also refused to back the government’s decision to unveil digital IDs when asked at the fringe event.

During a quick fire round of questions about various policies, he simply said, “Not now,” when digital IDs came up.

8. Universities

Burnham claimed the government is too concerned with sending people to university, too, and called for more of a focus on apprenticeships.

“Let’s start talking about the life chances of kids who are not going to university. Let’s rebuild technical education. That whole theme about working class aspiration, which built this city that we’re in, let’s start talking about those things again,” he said.

Burnham also took aim at the way Labour has handled Nigel Farage’s party which continues to rise in the polls despite having just five MPs.

He said: “We kind of need all of us to get more confident in taking [Reform] on, and we don’t pander.

“We lean back into our own values, and I think we unite a progressive coalition – that’s why I want to get onto this idea about electoral reform.”

He claimed the next general election is going to be like the EU referendum with a binary choice between a “progressive Britain and a divisive, darker Britain.”

He said: “In those circumstances, I think you do have to lay the ground for a more collaborative politics.”