Andy Burnham is not prime minister yet, but he has already outdone John Major. Whoever thought of putting him in a grey outfit against the backdrop of a grey door for this morning’s speech in Manchester certainly wasn’t thinking of injecting a bit of colour into national life. It was like watching Harold Wilson: the last PM before colour TV was introduced to Britain.

Burnham’s big mission for the country – to devolve power to the regions and localities – also wasn’t exactly calculated to set pulses racing. Rightly or wrongly, few things can be relied upon to provoke a yawn in British life than local government. Just look at the turnout in local elections and the increasing tendency for the electorate to use them as little more than a referendum on national government. It was, after all, the local elections which finally did for Keir Starmer and put Burnham in the position he is now.

It was like listening to Harold Wilson, back........

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