Power, when it is gained and lost, is transferred in stages: the actual, the visual and the constitutional. The latter took place on Tuesday evening when the prime minister presumptive sent a letter to Antonia Romeo, the Cabinet Secretary, requesting that she commence access talks with his team. Keir Starmer had already given permission for them to proceed, but the propriety and ethics team in the Cabinet Office had told Romeo she could not initiate proceedings. Andy Burnham had to ask first. To all intents and purposes, he is already the vessel from which power flows.

At the same time, it became clear that James Purnell, the former Blairite cabinet minister, will lead the transition team and stay on to become chief of staff in 10 Downing Street. For several weeks Purnell, who was a special adviser and cabinet contemporary of Burnham’s, has been playing a key backroom role, along with several former mandarins, attempting to ensure that this moment is not lost. ‘We either get this right or Nigel Farage is the next prime minister,’ one says.

‘The Makerfield test forces you towards economic blowing-the-doors-off plus social conservatism’

‘The Makerfield test forces you towards economic blowing-the-doors-off plus social conservatism’

Purnell was involved in a report last year by the Future Governance Forum recommending the creation of a prime minister’s department to seize power from the Cabinet Office. ‘James is a serious figure who has run big teams,’ says a friend. ‘He’s not some lunatic left-wing person. He won’t just sit there and say: “This is all working fine.” He’ll be asking why five people have the same job and what they do all day.’

Before the constitutional niceties, there was the visible transformation of the mayor of Greater Manchester into national leader. Burnham boarded a train from Manchester on Monday morning wearing a T-shirt and emerged at Euston station three hours later wearing a suit. ‘You can’t go to the Palace in a black T-shirt and bomber jacket,’ notes one ally. Burnham was mobbed by reporters, his progress to parliament followed by two TV helicopters. 

After he was sworn in as an MP, an aide took him to Westminster Hall to meet his fellow Labour MPs. Burnham peered through the door and saw hundreds of them assembled for a photograph. ‘Blimey!’ he said. Proof of the actual transfer of power. ‘Every-body’s texting everyone in Team Burnham saying, “I need to see Andy,”’ a Labour source says. Rather than setting out his agenda, ‘he’s being pitched at’ by everyone who wants a job or has an idea.

In No. 10, the transfer of power had to happen in Starmer’s head. He only realised the game was up when the result of the Makerfield by-election was announced early on Friday morning. ‘It was the scale of the victory,’ a cabinet minister says. ‘That changed the game. We’d have lost with a different candidate. That was a proof point for the PLP [Parliamentary Labour party]. MPs facing a Reform threat look at that and think, bloody hell, this guy can beat Reform. But in a London seat where the Greens are knocking on the door, they’ll think Andy’s brought the progressive vote into one place. The Lib Dem and Green vote just drained away.’ Last Saturday, Starmer was writing his departure speech with aides.

Power has already shifted to Burnham, but the subject of nearly every conversation in Westminster is: what will he do with it?

That plan, which originated in Zoom meetings in Burnham’s garden during the Makerfield campaign, is now being drawn up in a series of offices in SW1 and Manchester. Josh Simons, who gave up his seat for Burnham, and Miatta Fahnbulleh, a close ally of Ed Miliband, lead the policy shop, overseen by Louise Haigh and Anneliese Midgley, the ‘northern queens’ of Burnhamism.

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