Rebuffed Burnham can return to honing his stature and attack lines

With his return to Westminster seemingly blocked, on Monday Andy Burnham will get back to the two roles to which he has devoted his time in recent years: being mayor of Greater Manchester and annoying Keir Starmer.The second is very much a part-time and unofficial role, but it is noticeable how Burnham manages to edge back into the media spotlight whenever the leader of his party is having a tough time.In 2021, when Starmer, as leader of the opposition, was suffering under Boris Johnson’s short-lived if powerful “vaccine bounce” in the polls, Burnham spoke at so many fringe events at the party’s annual conference that even his aides lost count.Burnham’s self-stated role at the gathering in Brighton, 250 miles from his mayoral base, was to offer a range of policy ideas and also – to the deep frustration of those around Starmer – remind anyone listening he was a Labour official actually exercising power.Fast forward to last autumn’s conference, and Burnham was again seemingly ubiquitous. His flurry of events also kicked off with an interview in which Burnham breezily recounted how some Labour MPs had contacted him during the summer to ask if he would try to replace Starmer.For all that Burnham has pledged his loyalty to the prime minister, not even his close allies doubted that his decision to formally seek permission to become the candidate in the forthcoming Gorton and Denton byelection was anything but the first stage in a likely challenge.While allies of the prime minister spoke scathingly on Sunday of “Andy Burnham’s ambition” being at the centre of the plan, supporters of the mayor argue that with Starmer’s personal poll ratings dismal, Labour needs to change course if it is to prevent a Nigel Farage-led government.So what next? For all that Burnham will be aggrieved at the swift and comprehensively organised quashing of his plans by No 10, he can settle back into the role of the heir presumptive, the king over the water, the vessel for hope rather than the bearer of prosaic actuality.This also involves not having to actually fight a byelection where, notwithstanding the 13,000-plus majority enjoyed by Andrew Gwynne, the departing MP, Labour now faces a political street fight against Reform UK, the Greens and possibly a pro-Gaza independent candidate.The news that Zack Polanski, the charismatic Green leader, will not be standing takes away some of the Green threat, but the party is hugely bullish about its chances, and could at the very least dilute Labour’s vote enough to ensure it loses.Burnham can now watch all this from his mayoral office, with allies ready to brief the media, in the event of a Labour loss, how his local popularity would have made the difference.While some of Burnham’s allure to Labour MPs has been a product of his absence from Westminster, as a mayor he has carved out a distinct if occasionally woolly left-leaning ethos, certainly more distinctive than his philosophy as an MP, where he twice unsuccessfully stood for Labour leader, in 2010 and 2015.As set out in a Guardian opinion piece only last week, what Burnham calls “Manchesterism” is a growth-based vision combining government investment and intervention with wholesale devolution, something best exemplified by the region’s Bee network, an integrated travel system taking in trains, buses, trams and bike routes.Whether this, combined with Burnham’s low-key, easy-going charisma, would be enough to turn around Labour’s polling nationally is a question to which we do not, for now, have an answer.But with a general election as distant as mid-2029, and Starmer showing few signs of recovery, at some point we may.