Labour party

Andy Burnham thinks his critics need a new joke about him. The old one about a Blairite, a Brownite and a Corbynite walking into a bar (‘Hello, Mr Burnham,’ says the barman) is about to be eclipsed. On Monday, it won’t be a barman offering good wishes – it will be the Cabinet Secretary, Antonia Romeo, when Burnham walks into No. 10 as Britain’s 59th prime minister. Before that, on Friday, Burnham will accept the leadership of the Labour party, unopposed, at the headquarters of the Trades Union Congress. The speech he will give is still being worked on, but Burnham is ‘holding the pen himself’, aides say.

Power, when it is gained and lost, is transferred in stages: the actual, the visual and the constitutional. The latter took place on Tuesday evening when the prime minister presumptive sent a letter to Antonia Romeo, the Cabinet Secretary, requesting that she commence access talks with his team. Keir Starmer had already given permission for them to proceed, but the propriety and ethics team in the Cabinet Office had told Romeo she could not initiate proceedings. Andy Burnham had to ask first. To all intents and purposes, he is already the vessel from which power flows. At the same time, it became clear that James Purnell, the former Blairite cabinet minister, will lead the transition team and stay on to become chief of staff in 10 Downing Street.

The results are in and Andy Burnham is on his way to Westminster having won the Makerfield by-election. But what does that mean for Keir Starmer? What does it mean for Reform? And – most importantly – what does it mean for Britain? Tim Shipman unpacks the results on Spectator TV with former No.10 head of comms James Lyons, pollster Luke Tryl, The Times' Gabriel Pogrund and Michael Simmons. Join the discussion live in the chat and send your questions for the panel.

There appears to be a missing chapter in the story of Andy Burnham. Depending on the whims of voters in Makerfield, Britain could soon have its first prime minister with a degree in English literature and its first Cambridge-educated premier since Stanley Baldwin. And while we have been treated to countless long reads on the so-called King of the North – his political philosophy, his years in Manchester and his apprenticeship in New Labour – his undergraduate years have barely been scrutinised. Burnham is tight-lipped about his Cambridge days (1988-1991). His comments over the years have been mostly limited to saying he had ‘imposter syndrome’ as he struggled to fit in at a university that was dominated, he felt, by private school students.

When the Labour party football team played a group of journalists at Loftus Road two years ago the hacks won 4-1. The politicians’ solitary goal came from a late penalty. When the referee pointed to the spot, the center-forward stepped up, elbowing well-known politicians such as Ed Balls, David Miliband and Sadiq Khan out of the way in his bid for glory. There was a notable absence that day. “Keir [Starmer] had been due to play, but he didn’t turn up,” a witness recalls. “If he had been there, he’d probably have grabbed the ball and there might have been a tussle.” Instead, Andy Burnham said: “This is mine,” and calmly slotted it into the corner. “It was a perfect penalty,” says the witness.