There’s a joke doing the rounds about Andy Burnham. It usually goes something like this: a Blairite, a Brownite and a Corbynite walk into a bar. “Hello, Andy, what can I get you?” asks the barman.

The man who would be our next prime minister has been through a few incarnations in his career as a Labour politician. This shape-shifting has been reflected in the jobs he’s done and the policies he’s championed.

But it’s also been reflected, of course, in the clothes he wears, in the image he’s trying to project. Andy 4.0 (four? It could be more) is Manchester Andy. You know what I mean. The buttoned-up polo shirts. The Everton shirt. The Clarks Wallabees. The yellow Bee Network pin. The black T-shirts and 5-inch running shorts. The clothes that say gen X dad, northern indie fella and Labour’s last big hope for political redemption who loves nothing more than to man a barbecue on the weekend.

Still, they say the most bitter divorces follow the most passionate love affairs, which makes the inevitable separation of the former mayor and his “Manchester clothes” one of the most agonising breakups in British politics. Because if he gets to No 10 – and the odds are that he will – he’s going to have to make peace with wearing a tie again.

I’m not........

© The Guardian