A lifelong Labour voter who made Andy Burnham smile on Question Time when she demanded he become Prime Minister said she might move to Spain to flee Starmer.

Monica Taberner, who appeared on the Makerfield by-election special episode on June 4, said her patience with the current Labour government was running thin and ‘if this carries on, I think we’ll go to Spain.’

The 74-year-old retired NHS worker from Wigan said she had voted Labour since the age of 18 but got ‘the biggest shock’ of her life when Sir Keir Starmer stripped pensioners of the winter fuel allowance just three weeks into power.

This betrayal compelled her to tell Burnham on air that she wanted him to win the Makerfield by-election and oust the Prime Minister – ‘the sooner the better’.

She told The Daily Mail: ‘When you attack pensioners, you commit political suicide. I couldn’t believe what he’d done, taking the winter fuel allowance.

‘The working people will go on strike, but the pensioners can’t do anything, so they think. We voted you in, we’ll vote you out. You think pensioners will forget? You’re mistaken, pensioners will not forget.’

The lifelong party supporter, who worked in the NHS for more than 30 years before retiring in 2015, said her father had been a strong Labour man and that she had always followed suit – but the party was no longer what it once was.

‘I think we all got fooled because they’d not been in power so long,’ she said. ‘I just voted Labour because I wanted Labour back in power.’

A Question Time audience member says of Sir Keir Starmer: ‘Everybody wants him to go’

Andy Burnham smiles after Fiona Bruce’s interjection following the woman’s comments

Presenter Fiona Bruce had joked that the woman should ‘just say what you really think’

She was convinced, however, that Mr Burnham would put things right. ‘I will vote for Andy because he’s down to earth like we are,’ she said. 

‘I don’t think Starmer will remain in Downing Street because I think Andy will remove him. I think he’ll walk it. He needs to up the stakes though. I’m pretty sure he will.’

She added Mr Burnham mouthed to her ‘I will look at that’ after the show ended – a reference to her earlier question about raising the tax threshold for pensioners.

‘I’ll say it as it is, I’m a spade is a spade woman,’ she added.

On Question Time the previous evening, presenter Fiona Bruce had introduced her simply as ‘the woman here in the jacket’ before she launched her broadside against the Prime Minister.

She ripped into Burnham’s Labour civil war foe Sir Keir Starmer from the audience and made the Greater Manchester Mayor struggle to hide a smirk as she said: ‘Everybody wants him to go, we can’t stand him.’

She said: ‘The sooner the better that Keir Starmer walks out of Downing Street, the better for me and everybody else. We want him to go. Everybody wants him to go, we can’t stand him actually. But he’s not for the people anyway.’

Bruce interjected, joking ‘say what you really think’, prompting a broad smile from Mr Burnham, who wrote something down on his notepad.

Ms Taberner continued: ‘Well, yeah. He’s [Starmer] not for the people, he doesn’t listen, that’s his downfall.’

She also challenged Mr Burnham directly on the tax threshold, asking: ‘Reform have in the manifesto they’re going to raise the tax threshold. Why is that not in your manifesto?

‘Because if you put that in your manifesto, you’ll walk this by-election, easy. It’s not for everybody for pensioners.’

Bruce was forced to clarify that raising the threshold to £20,000 had been a Reform policy in 2024 but was no longer current party policy.

Ms Taberner was full of praise for Question Time presenter Fiona Bruce after the show. She said: ‘he spoke to us before we started filming. She is the nicest lady, she’s lovely.’

The reaction to her appearance on the show had been overwhelming, with well-wishers telling Ms Taberner: ‘Oh you’re brilliant’, ‘I couldn’t have said it better myself’ and ‘you said it exactly as a Wigan girl would do.’

Her comments came after Mr Burnham used the BBC TV special ahead of the Makerfield by-election on June 18 to confirm he would seek to replace Sir Keir in No 10 if elected.

The woman says Sir Keir Starmer was ‘not for the people’ and the ‘sooner the better’ he quits

(From left) Jake Austin from the Liberal Democrats, Michael William Winstanley, Mr Burnham, Fiona Bruce, Robert Kenyon from Reform UK and Sarah Wakefield from the Green Party

His confirmation that he has designs on national power came as a new poll showed he has a ten-point lead over Reform UK’s Robert Kenyon in the Wigan seat.

If the ‘King of the North’ wins the Westminster seat it will fire the starting gun on a summer of bitter Labour infighting, with Sir Keir vowing he will not step aside meekly – signalling he will take on Mr Burnham and other challengers such as Wes Streeting.

Mr Burnham, who is widely viewed as Sir Keir’s main rival for the top job, said he had asked his team to help ‘develop a policy’ but would need the backing of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

‘I’m not somebody who gets ahead of myself. I can’t do anything unless I’m lucky enough to get the support of people here,’ he explained.

‘But if I get your support, I would seek to represent you at the highest possible level and give this constituency maximum power and influence.

‘I think Wes Streeting seems to have launched a leadership contest, so if that is running, I would seek to join it.’

Mr Burnham also called for a ‘fundamental change’ in Westminster to restore the public’s trust in politicians, saying the system ‘treated us as the bottom of the list rather than the top of the list.’

He added: ‘It’s the point scoring, isn’t it? People go to point-scoring before they go to problem-solving.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Swindow today as he visits Stark, a defence tech company

Deputy PM David Lammy speaks at the Global Partnerships Conference in London on May 19

‘It’s party first rather than place first. That approach, a more collaborative politics, needs to be taken from here, Greater Manchester, and taken down there.’

Asked on Friday whether he was prepared to fight to remain as Labour leader, Sir Keir told LBC: ‘I’ve said over and over again I’m not going to walk away. We won an election victory in 2024 with a five-year mandate. We’re only two years into that.’

He also warned against ‘plunging into an internal fight in the Labour Party’ at a time of war in Ukraine and conflict in the Middle East.

‘We live in the most dangerous and volatile world in our lifetimes,’ he said. ‘That’s why I sincerely and profoundly believe that we should be getting on with the job that we were elected to do.’

Sir Keir’s allies echoed the warning, with Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy telling LBC: ‘There is no contest at the moment, and my view is it would be a huge distraction at this time. The Prime Minister has been absolutely clear: if there is a contest, he’ll be in it.’

Attorney General Lord Hermer added: ‘Keir has constantly been underestimated. He has always proven his critics wrong. No one has ever got rich betting against Keir Starmer.’

Downing Street hit back at Mr Burnham’s announcement, saying the process for challenging the Labour leader ‘has not been triggered’ and that Sir Keir ‘will not walk away from the mandate he was given just two years ago to build a stronger, fairer Britain.’

A No 10 spokesperson said the Government was focused on supporting people with the cost of living, cutting NHS waiting lists and lifting half a million children out of poverty.

‘The country expects us to focus on governing and to deliver change for hard-working people, not get distracted by Westminster debates,’ the spokesperson added.

Mr Burnham has also ruled out calling a snap election if he enters Downing Street. He is one of 14 candidates standing in the by-election, which was triggered when Labour’s Josh Simons stood down.

The vote is expected to be a race between Mr Burnham and Reform UK’s candidate Robert Kenyon, a plumber and local councillor.

A Survation poll of 518 voters showed Mr Burnham on 49 per cent, ahead of Reform’s Mr Kenyon on 39 per cent. 

Rebecca Shepherd of Restore Britain was on 8 per cent and the Greens on 2 per cent, with the Lib Dems and Conservatives each on 1 per cent.