So many by-elections; one big winner; many losers. Who knows if Andy Burnham’s success at Makerfield will see him evict Sir Keir Starmer from 10 Downing Street, but it’s probable. He’ll now have to come up with something better though, than the Bambi act he’s perfected as Mayor of Manchester.

In an early morning interview on Radio Scotland following the by-elections, Paul Sweeney said he felt Mr Burnham could bring “a degree of emotional intelligence” and “connectivity with the voters” where it’s been missing under Sir Keir. The Glasgow Labour MSP said: “He gets working-class communities.”

Well; perhaps, but so, palpably, have many of Reform UK’s candidates. Emotional intelligence, connectivity and ‘getting’ working-class communities doth not butter the parsnips. If Mr Burnham does ascend to Number 10, he’ll be Britain’s first LinkedIn Prime Minister on a manifesto of green energy hubs, warehouse conversions (especially if they’re near a waterway) and cycle lanes in a 15-minute neighbourhood.

We’ll hear about the ‘City Region’ before it morphs again into something like the ‘efficient townscape’ which will be all about aiming for ‘metro-optimum’, or some such. New layers of bureaucracy dressed up as ‘connectivity’ will get devised and the shiny Community Empowerment Act will, in due course, become the Regional Empowerment Act which will ‘connect neighbourhoods’ and come with built-in resilience.

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If you want to get local or central government on board with your plan to deliver more woodland walks........

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