Can Andy Burnham actually win Greater Manchester’s mayoral election?

After months of local campaigning, backbiting and press releasing, the Greater Manchester mayoral election has finally piqued the national attention. Andy Burnham’s apparently sudden declaration he will run for the role has thrust the race into the limelight.

There may be more than a hint of cockiness to his claim that the competition needs a ‘big name’ to raise its profile, but there is also more than a hint of truth. Unlike the London race, there has so far been little momentum to its poorer northern relative. But for Andy Burnham the question that really matters, given that the Labour candidacy is likely to determine who becomes mayor of 2.5m people next year, is whether he can actually do it. And it’s far from a given.

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This week it emerged that candidates have been given perilously small budgets with which to campaign, compared to the huge sums spent by London’s Labour hopefuls. That