One of Andy Burnham’s first policy moves brought back a sharp memory. On Wednesday, he announced that single bus fares across England would be capped at £2, starting from January. It was part of a series of small, practical measures designed, said the new prime minister, to offer a little “breathing space” to a hard-pressed public, but this was the one that registered with me most. That’s because it echoed the first time I ever experienced a specific public policy affect me directly.

It was in the autumn of 1981 when the newly elected Greater London Council, led by Labour’s Ken Livingstone, slashed bus fares in the city. The headline-grabber was a new, short-hop fare of only 10p. I was 14 years old at the time, so for me it was even better: all child tickets were reduced to 5p. They called the scheme Fares Fair.

It became a legal and political battle – Margaret Thatcher’s government objected to the extra local tax levied on Londoners to pay for it – and eventually Fares Fair was declared illegal and shut down. But I never forgot it and nor, I suspect, did many of the residents of the capital who would make Livingstone London’s first elected mayor nearly 20 years later.

Fares Fair had what no one at the time called cut-through. It was a simple, clear offer to voters that had a direct, positive impact on their lives, one they would remember long after bigger, grander strategies had been lost to oblivion. It worked because politics is, in part, a retail business.

Burnham’s first week as PM, and his tenure as mayor of Greater Manchester, suggest he understands that very well. Yes, there can be grand talk of ending a 40-year model of political centralisation and economic privatisation, but you also need to do something for voters that is immediate, tangible and uncomplicated. Everyone........

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