My contribution to this summer’s modest avalanche of Andy Burnham stories extends to only two. One is about Glastonbury, and the time that he and his wife, Marie-France, came for a three-day stay at the festival, which included his appearance on the Left Field stage, organised by the songwriter and activist Billy Bragg. I help with the bookings and chair some of the debate sessions: Burnham’s was titled State of the Nation: Politics in Crisis.

It was the summer of 2022 – the prologue to Liz Truss’s five minutes in power and (somewhat amazingly) Burnham’s first visit to Glasto. As well as seeing bands – the Irish funsters Fontaines DC were among his favourites – and wandering around the perfumed fields, he had come to make the case for a lot of the stuff he has been talking about in the buildup to him entering Downing Street on Monday: “rewiring” the UK by changing our systems of politics and authority, collaborating on that task with other parties, and taking away as much power as possible from Westminster. Open, self-questioning and a talker rather than a shouter, in front of 1,000 mostly hungover people in a giant tent, he passed with honours; he was even nice to the obligatory disruptive Trotskyists.

Here, though, is the punchline, which may say something about his preparation skills, or the impossible workload of a regional mayor. The Burnhams arrived backstage full of gratitude for the chance to be there (really – they were thrilled to bits), but with a miniature beach tent they had mistakenly grabbed as they ran out of their house, which could probably accommodate a lone toddler. Bragg’s brother was kind enough to lend them his more suitable canvas accommodation.

Anecdote two: later that year, I ran into Burnham again at the Labour party conference. I explained that I had just been to review Bob........

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