Pressure grows on Starmer to step aside for Burnham – UK politics live

Key events ‘Within 10 mins, Andy had nicked it’: illustrator on his ubiquitous image of Andy Burnham Andy Burnham supporters celebrating at Ashton Town FC on the morning of his Makerfield byelection win. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian It was shortly after Andy Burnham’s famously rousing speech outside the Manchester Central Library in October 2020 that Stanley Chow decided to draw him. Or rather his wife did. “It was the pandemic and we were all so down in the dumps at that point,” says the illustrator, speaking from his home in the city this week. But I remember looking around and he had just moved everyone. “He was already a good mayor, but at that point we all thought: ‘Oh shit, he’s really good.’ And then my wife goes: you should draw Andy.” So he did, using his preferred medium, Adobe Illustrator. “I put it on Twitter and within 10 mins, Andy had nicked it.” Burnham initially used the image for his Twitter handle, but it has since appeared on billboards, beer mats, mugs, aprons and record inlays, becoming a visual proxy for both his mayoral campaigns and more recent campaigning in Makerfield. With his spot-on light scowl and navy/black attire, the image has become shorthand for Burnham’s anti-establishment sentiment. “There is no tie, no,” says Chow, 51. After its initial use, Burnham said he was “grateful to Stan for making me look cooler than I am”.