Some will say Andy Burnham did a U-turn on Brexit. The motoring cliche does not do it justice. This volte-face was so breezy it was worthy of the Winter Olympics.
Here was an artiste at the top of his powers. Ice-skating judges will determine if it was an axel, salchow, camel spin or top-notch twizzle. All I know is that at one moment our 'PM-in-waiting' was shimmering along with a practised grin, waggling his Captain Scarlet eyebrows, all blithely smooth; the next he was up in the air, twirling like dear John Curry going for gold at Innsbruck in 1976. When he landed back on the ice, he was facing the other way. Remarkable.
Mention of 1976 is not so inapt a cultural reference as you might suspect, for Mr Burnham devoted much of his speech to moaning about Thatcherism. If he skates into No 10 later this year, things may become distinctly retro.
But back to Brexit, to which Andy Burnham now cleaves like an over-sexed mutt to a visitor's shin. The Great Volte-Face occurred at a 'Great North Investment Summit' in Leeds. The room was addressed beforehand by a strenuously Northern lass, Kim, who said how amazingly successful the North was. When Northerners 'see a problem, we see an opportunity and we unite'. Without irony she then ceded the lectern to Sir Keir Starmer's opportunity-spotting nemesis.
Mr Burnham shuffled to the lectern dressed sloppily in black. He said he was delighted to be in Yorkshire and then spent the next ten minutes talking about Makerfield, the parliamentary seat he intends to inherit in what we once called Lancashire. The speech was a mix of national and local politics. He kept mentioning areas in Makerfield – Bickershaw, Ashton, Hindley – as if everyone watching would know where and what they were. Parochial? Yes. But that sort of thing plays well in Thora Hird territory.
Double-speak abounded as our presumptuous Lochinvar talked of 'setting new ambitions about where we go in the next decade'. Mr Burnham said he was delighted to be in Yorkshire and then began talking about Makerfield, the parliamentary seat he intends to inherit in what we once called Lancashire. TV footage of Mr Burnham jogging in some skimpy bags was blatant pitch for the widows' vote in Makerfield care homes.
On one level he was talking about northern English mayors but of course he now wants to be shot of them, having dawdled quite long enough in local politics. Ambitious Andy hungers to be down south where the real juice happens.
'We are on the way back,' he continued. 'We all know we can be greater.' He was talking about himself. Since announcing his Makerfield bid he had received 'plenty of advice'. This included 'for God's sake, get some new running shorts', a reference to TV footage of Mr Burnham jogging in some skimpy bags. A blatant pitch for the widows' vote in Makerfield care homes. First-aid orderlies have been busy reviving old dears called Elsie who swallowed their false teeth at the sight of the mayor's hairy inner thighs. This man will do anything for votes.
Does that include ditching his long-held position on Brexit? Sure, jettison the lot. Anything to win power. And so, despite having previously called for us to rejoin the EU, he now claimed that he was happy for us to be an independent nation. Makerfield voted strongly for Leave, you see. His new position on Europe will remain solid, we can be sure, until at least 10pm on polling day in the Makerfield by-election.
He attacked Whitehall. He spoke of building more council homes. He took a few barely-coded swipes at Sir Keir Starmer ('what my party offered in the past has simply not been good enough'). And there was plenty of whingeing about Mrs Thatcher. He suggested that the North had never recovered from her wicked deindustrialisation. But hang on, hadn't young Kim just been telling us how whizzo everything in the North now was? And was that not achieved under the Tories?
In other news, Sir Keir did a clip with GB News. He was trying to look cheerful but the eyes were from one of those rescue-dog adverts. 'Keir has been abandoned. Keir needs a new home.' Poor old boy.
