Josh Halliday

So it was a really seminal moment really in his sort of political journey.

Well, they were quite different contests in 2010 and 2015.

And you saw quite different versions of Andy Burnham.

The mood also in the country at the time was different just in the space of five years.

Remember Corbyn Mania in 2015?

This kind of unstoppable wave of support for Jeremy Corbyn.

And he came nowhere near winning that, really.

You know, many people would have given up after two times in this sort of humiliating fashion as well.

Both of his campaigns were quite odd in a way.

They never really got off the ground with any coherent policies or messaging.

People didn't really know what Andy Burnham stood for.

to do it is not unreasonable to ask you are you closer to kendall or corbin or somewhere in the dead clearly somewhere clearly somewhere in the middle in between aren't i and i'm not i'm not denying the question but it's i know you in the media like to put labels on people you know one of his criticisms of his of his time as a government minister that people say um is that he just seemed to rise without trace and no one can really say who he is or what he stands for

It's a classic.

He's, you know, the jellyfish is what some people called him, I think as well, spineless.

And then two years later, he was out of Westminster, but he still hadn't sort of given up on his ambitions to one day lead the Labour Party.

So here he is, you know, 11 years down the line.

I think he just got completely fed up of Westminster.

After 15 or 16 years there, holding various ministerial posts, being frustrated in his efforts to get things done.

He's spoken about not liking the way government operates, the whip system.

You have to vote the way the government votes, not what you believe in your conscience.