When I was covering Barack Obama’s battle with Hillary Clinton for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, there came a moment when only she among sentient adults seemed unwilling to acknowledge that Obama had beaten her. We would traipse to Clinton rallies to be greeted, without fail, by the strains of my favourite Tom Petty song, I Won’t Back Down. (‘You could stand me up at the gates of Hell/ But I won’t back down/ No, I’ll stand my ground/ Won’t be turned around/ And I’ll keep this world from draggin’ me down/ Gonna stand my ground…’). It was delegate votes rather than anyone draggin’ her down which cost Clinton of course, but for years afterwards I couldn’t hear Petty’s gravelly voice without seeing her pasty, pantsuited visage.

Burnham’s schtick is that he is going to re-discover Labour’s true faith

Burnham’s schtick is that he is going to re-discover Labour’s true faith

And now another politician comes along to ruin another of my favourite songs. The next time I play New Order’s True Faith, I will try to recall a sweaty sixth form disco and the sense of possibility, but I fear what will pop into my head is the smiley features of Andy Burnham, our next prime minister, gently bopping like a twinkly uncle at his niece’s wedding, anticipating the attentions of every divorcee in the room when he goes to the bar.

Just as with Clinton, of course, these were theatrically performative lyrics at the announcement of the result of Labour’s leadership non-contest. Burnham’s schtick is that he is going to re-discover Labour’s true faith and win back the voters who, in his telling, the party has abandoned.

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After failing twice before to become leader, Burnham looked very much like the kid whose face was now basking ‘in the morning sun’. New Order, one of Manchester’s finest bands crooned away: ‘I feel so extraordinary/ Something’s got a hold on me/ I get this feeling I’m in motion/ A sudden sense of liberty.’ This is his moment and he looks like he is enjoying the motion and liberty. And Burnham’s pledges to do more for people and places which have been left behind could have been penned by Bernard Sumner, who wrote of how, in such communities, ‘the value of destiny comes to nothing’.

But listening to Burnham’s speech – which was perhaps understandably directed more at the Labour party than the country (the address to the voters will follow on the steps of No. 10 on Monday) – he also seemed still to embody this line from the song: ‘I can’t tell you where we’re going/ I guess there was just no way of knowing.’

‘I know what I believe after 25 years as an elected representative,’ he said. ‘I........

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