As a northerner, I’m fed up of Andy Burnham’s northern stereotypes

Northerners are easy to stereotype: working class, beer, flat caps, Labour, trade unions and football. In the same way all southerners aren’t stuck-up opera-goers and every Scot isn’t a miserly chip-guzzler, this portrait of a typical northerner is insultingly inaccurate — but it is one that some love to propagate. One of those people happens to be Andy Burnham, who is running for Labour leader. As a northerner, I’m not sure that I can take much more of his schtick.

It is frustrating to listen to how much of his leadership has been about being northern. Sure, Liz Kendall frequently namedrops her Watford upbringing but Burnham’s whole persona is based on his Liverpudlian roots. At his campaign event in central London last night Burnham was at it again, referencing his ‘working class Liverpudlian’ grandmother and his frequent visits to Anfield (for his work on Hillsborough). You feel like shouting: ‘this is a leadership contest, not a Monty Python sketch‘. It