Today’s speech by Andy Burnham underlines that he represents a shift in vibes. What matters, however, is substance, and on that front we still have more questions than answers.

Our soon-to-be prime minister made plenty of good noises. His speech was at the People’s History Museum in Manchester, which showcases the struggles of ordinary people, such as the Levellers, the Chartists, suffragettes and trade unionists, for justice and democracy. He would “take inspiration from that history”, he told his enthused audience.

Much of what he said was an implicit indictment of the current Labour government. “We can’t go on like this,” he said, condemning two decades of falling living standards since the 2008 financial crash. His premiership would be a “circuit breaker”. The whips’ system would no longer “create fear or close down debate”, a pointed rejection of Keir Starmer’s authoritarianism, which has repeatedly seen Labour MPs suspended for defying orders on votes.

Burnham noted that Britain is one of the most overcentralised countries on Earth, and promised the “biggest rebalancing of power our country has seen”. Exciting-sounding stuff, but remember that George Osborne launched what he called “the biggest transfer of power to our local government in living memory” more than a decade ago. The critique then was that, in an age of austerity, this amounted to devolving cuts and weakening redistribution, while favouring richer communities with stronger tax bases.

This time, Burnham is pledging to hand........

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