Andy Burnham is Labour’s king over the water

There are few things so perilous for an under-performing opposition leader as the emergence of a ‘king over the water’. This is typically someone who is a member of the same party with an impressive track record but who isn’t currently in the Commons and is therefore not subject to the patronage wielded by the leader. As the leader flails, the king over the water is deemed to have acquired miraculous powers. Each new poll recording the leader’s unpopularity launches a thousand new daydreams among party members fondly imagining how the king over the water would reshape things in ways they yearn for.

Keir Starmer is now faced with just such an entity in the shape of the Manchester Metro Mayor Andy Burnham, the biggest Labour winner in the recent elections. Burnham even luxuriates in the nickname ‘king of the north’, advertising his reach into heartland voting areas the national party has lost.