There’s a Morrissey lyric for every occasion in life.
Our next Prime Minister Andy Burnham knows it, after all he’s prone to quoting lines from The Smiths and Morrissey songbooks as often as he can.
He was chuckling to himself about it in one of his ‘candid’ social media clips on Monday as he headed back down to London, reciting the line: “I left the North again – I travelled South again.”
But the serious business of government is about to begin for Burnham, and if he doesn’t get a grip on the country’s problems, pretty soon that joke won’t be funny anymore.
You see it’s not hard to paint a vulgar picture of the situation we find ourselves in.
Two years on from an election where the Labour Party promised positive change Britain seems more economically and socially divided than ever before.
The current Government promised to heal the country but it’s still ill and heading for terminal if things don’t turn around soon.
Britain’s light is in danger of going out – and that’s not just because the electricity prices are getting out of hand for most families.
Two years have been wasted, culminating in devastating local and regional election defeats, with the party losing hundreds of seats in its Red Wall strongholds and beyond.
We all know it’s over for Sir Keir Starmer as Prime Minister and now Burnham is the latest son and heir of a Labour Party whose ruthlessness in dealing with its leaders is criminally vulgar.
We’ve seen it all before – after all barbarism begins at home with the Labour Party – and their vicious tribalism soon shows through.
For that matter how long will it be before they turn on Burnham?
Time after time they’ve proved they hate it when their friends become successful – and history suggest that if they’re northern, that makes it even worse.
His supporters will no doubt ask me how I can say he goes about things the wrong way when we’ve not yet given him a chance?
But this is all happening far too quickly and without enough scrutiny for most people and we don’t know what he stands for.
With just a rush and a push the land that Sir Keir Starmer currently stands on will be Burnham’s.
And we will have had no say in it.
Apart from his lightly policy-sprinkled speech up in Manchester on Monday, we don’t know what he’s got planned.
We are told he’s the King of the North who has transformed life for the better across Greater Manchester during his time as Mayor.
He’s made much of his ‘Manchesterism’ philosophy but let’s remember this is no born and bred Rusholme ruffian but an Everton supporter from Aintree.
Whether he ends up living there or not, he says he’s keen to create a new ‘Number 10’ in the north, in just a couple of weeks he will have the keys to the big one in Downing Street.
And then what?
The worry is he goes back, not to the old house in Westminster, but to the dark old days of the 1970s.
Will he be hand in glove with the unions, bringing Britain’s employers to their knees?
Or will this charming man actually get the economy booming again while simultaneously boosting jobs prospects and making us a meritocracy again?
Will he crack Britain’s crime wave or will we continue to see high streets across Britain blighted by anti-social behaviour, streets where the shoplifters of the world have united to a point where staff and shoppers feel unsafe in the freezer aisle as they do their weekly trolley run.
Will our struggling younger generation of ‘Neets’ one day look for a job and actually find a job?
Their prospects are pretty miserable now…
Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one from politicians before, but Burnham’s certain he’s the man to transform Britain for the better – making the country fairer and he’s particularly keen on having that No10 in the north.
But if a few civil servants move to Manchester from London, what difference does it make if you live in Newcastle, Carlisle or Hull?
I get it, we don’t want a government that oscillates wildly in a panic, unable to make decisions.
And that said, most people agree it’s best that Keir Starmer is replaced once and for all.
But without anyone voting on it – or even debating it?!
We need to do it properly and democratically.
Frankly Mr Burnham, there’s plenty of us, not just Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch, who think you just haven’t earned it yet, baby.
Heaven knows we need an election, now.
Is it really so strange to ask?
