ONE of the oddest by-products of Andy Burnham’s very British coup this summer is the way the post of prime minister has been revealed to be little more than first minister of England.

Nearly everything he has said and done since taking power has been about mending things that affect only the English.

The United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland, my foot. This is a government for a greater Manchester that extends from Cornwall in the south to Newcastle in the north east.

I for one am getting a touch of initiativitis from Burnham’s constant flurry of small-scale announcements, designed to give the impression of busyness without actually doing much.

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Thank God I’m not on TikTok, where the PM is competing with twenty-something influencers for air time with funny videos. Has Generation Z not suffered enough?

Okay, I’ll accept that he is in post just over a month, has yet to face the scrutiny of Parliament, and his big set-piece budget has yet to come.

But we already know some of the elements. Billions will be wasted on military expenditure designed to hide the fact that the UK is no........

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