Dan Hodges

And people said, yes.

Now, that does not mean that that is the Andy Burnham we're going to get in government, because the other thing is and this is where I completely disagree with you about that.

He's just like Keir Starmer for good or for real.

I mean, I know because I used to work with him.

Andy Burnham has been in politics his entire life.

Andy Burnham was an advisor.

He was a Labour MP.

He was chief secretary of the Treasury.

He was a health secretary.

He's been a successful Labour mayor of Manchester.

He's just won the most important by-election in British political history.

He is not Keir Starmer.

He is not a political dilettante.

He is not someone who doesn't understand politics and what is necessary to succeed in politics.

And he does have something to use that terrible phrase, something of a political hinterland.

Now he's been on a political journey, certainly when we were working together,

I was saying this to somebody the other day, he was even more New Labour than I was.

But the reality is Andy Burnham is astute enough to understand that what worked for Tony Blair in 1997 is not going to work for Andy Burnham and Labour in 2027 or whenever.

And he has enough political experience, I think,

over the next few weeks and months to put forward something that will resemble, certainly when set against what Keir Starmer presented, something that is a coherent political program and political narrative.