Andy Burnham has set out his vision for “good growth in every postcode”. It may seem like levelling up 2.0 – and if so, that’s very good news for the country. Because, unlike his Labour and Conservative predecessors, Burnham may well have a far better sense of how to deliver it.

Boris Johnson lifted the levelling up language from the Department for Education (DfE), deployed during my time there, but then downgraded what should have been a defining purpose for his government to little more than a towns fund. Keir Starmer rightly identified “breaking down barriers to opportunity” as a government mission, but in office he hiked up employers’ national insurance – literally taxing opportunity – in a way that was always going to hit early career, younger workers the most.

With his Makerfield byelection victory, Burnham comes across as more understanding of the scale and complexity of change needed so that all parts of the UK feel the benefit of government. Even so, the political rubber will need to hit the road remarkably quickly, or patience will run out with his premiership even faster than it did with Keir Starmer.

Success needs three key components.

First, “place” and “partnership” rightly matter for this incoming prime minister. Whitehall’s top-down, one size fits all........

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