First impressions matter hugely and Andy Burnham’s was a belter.
Fluent, authentic, confident, optimistic and bold to inject promised hope into many hearts was a storming first hour.
Keir Starmer departed Downing Street quietly for the final time with great dignity and pride, loyal staff and supporters wiping away tears.
Burham arrived with a loud bang, the human circuit breaker instantly showing Labour MPs and voters why faith was put in him.
Watching Nigel Farage and Reform stormtroopers who wanted Starmer gone, mistakenly believing a Hard Right future was in the bag, will now be bowel-movingly nervous about what they wished for.
Because Burnham does walk his talk, delivering help to ease the cost of living crisis and boost living standards, and flapping Farage may well have more time to spend with other people’s money even if he survives that Clacton circus gig with a bin.
This PM’s arrival was arguably the most impressive of 10 PMs I’ve covered moving into the seat of political power, 11 if you count watching Thatcher in my teenage years. Better even than Blair or Cameron or Johnson and certainly, remember her?, Truss.
Speaking without notes in a man-in-the-pub tone was a calculated risk paying handsome dividends, illustrating he’s a story teller not a script reader.
But content matters most and the balance between continuity and change will be the decider. Yes, we’ve yet to see the beef and if Burnham doesn’t live up to his self-billing jubilant Andy’s Army will stall.
The signs are good though, the recognition families yearn for a breathing space at the beginning of a 10-year plan to undo strangling privatisation and deregulation of the past four decades an attractive prospect.
Electricity, gas and water industries flogged by the Cons mutated into cash-guzzling machines screaming out for renewed public influence and ownership.
Failing to replace sold council houses deprived millions of future folk affordable, secure and decent homes.
Visiting a homeless centre early morning, immediately declaring ending rough sleeping a priority, revealed an endearing compassionate core.
Admitting past personal mistakes, indeed nervousness about the job he grabbed in a bloodless coup, is also a refreshing switch from robo politicians.
Burnham, however, realises he won’t get close to 10 years every PM publicly desires and few enjoy (Blair and Thatcher were the last) if he stumbles instead of hitting the ground running in an unforgiving, febrile and fractured politics.
In news we used to talk about a 24/7 cycle, every hour of every day counting. Burnham will be judged 60/60, every second of every minute, as internet mobs fuelled by poisonous disinformation, lies and X’s Fascistic trillionaire US owner Elon Musk’s divide-and-rule algorithms inciting hate and despair.
Legitimate questions deserve answers about any mandate when Burnham is the 10th of 19 post-war PMs to emerge through the Parliamentary system rather than a General Election.
Particularly when acknowledging he’s the sixth to walk up No 10 in a decade, the seventh PM since 2016 counting Cameron, signalled no early poll is on his agenda.
So that’s potentially three years as PM to transform Britain. His, Labour’s and the country’s fate may be sealed in three weeks or months.