Only vaulting ambition takes anyone to No 10, but Andy Burnham’s ambition reaches phenomenal heights. Can he really make the biggest changes in 40 years? Can he build a new economy? The new prime minister lashes himself to the mast of those mighty aspirations, but adds in something even riskier – an end to rough sleeping, ordered immediately. That’s so highly visible everywhere that it will be a test of the extent of his power – will it reach into each dank alley and shop doorway?

He understands the immensity of the tasks ahead. “I know what to do,” he said on taking up the leadership. Indeed, he is the most experienced prime minister to enter that door in recent years. He knows the Treasury as its chief secretary, he knows the inside ways of the cabinet, he has run the NHS and Greater Manchester. He knows Whitehall and Westminster, not to their advantage. Beyond that, he knows the disgruntled mood in the everyday world outside, where incomes stagnate.

“I have a plan,” he dares to claim, making cynics and malevolents smirk because everyone knows that wars, plagues, riots, Donald Trump and unknown unknowns upset the best-laid grids in Downing Street spreadsheets. He knows this is the best of times, the crest of the wave, the rising tide of hope. So he must not waste it: on the progressive side of life, they don’t come round often.

As a reminder that the time is short and the path hard, Keir Starmer gracefully bore the gruesome farewell ritual. He rightly says he leaves the country “stronger and fairer”. He was ousted not by plotters but by a public still unrelenting in its hostility: only 28% agree he did well, against 64% who........

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