Andy Burnham may not really be the king of the North, but after his oratorical performance throughout the Makerfield by-election he can certainly claim to be king of the cliches.

With his trademark black T-shirts and folksy, bloke-next-door style, he deployed every tired banality in the book to secure victory. Anything rather than discuss policy.

Vote for hope… for change… for a new politics… for the hope that change needs (or is it the change that hope needs?)… and the spectacularly vapid: ‘Vote Andy – For Us.’

If all this twaddle sounds familiar, then so it should. It’s the same turgid rhetoric deployed by Sir Keir Starmer before the General Election less than two years ago. And look how that worked out.

As Sir Keir’s ineptitude and raft of broken promises finally catch up with him, Mr Burnham has somehow managed to cast himself as a new broom.

Despite being a career politician entirely forged by the Labour machine, an ex-Cabinet minister and twice a (failed) party leadership contender, he speaks like an insurgent – a champion of ‘us’ against an unspecified ‘them’. It is pure wind, of course, and yet it worked. The good people of Makerfield swallowed his snake oil, no doubt swayed by his strong local connections and everyman stage act.

Their reward is that he will now desert them for the brighter lights of London and a shot at the biggest political prize of all – the keys to 10 Downing Street.

The voters of Greater Manchester have been similarly abandoned. Having promised in 2024 that he would serve his full five-year term as mayor, Mr Burnham’s departure triggers a fresh by-election which Labour could easily lose. So much for loyalty.

Yesterday’s emphatic win is a painful blow to Nigel Farage and Reform UK, who swept the board here in recent local elections and had initially hoped to win.

If they are to progress, they need a more coherent message, a stronger structure beneath the leader and much better candidates. Otherwise, we may already have passed peak Reform.

However, their problems are nothing to those of Sir Keir, for whom this result is surely terminal. It’s clear from the sticky outpouring of gush from across the Labour movement following his victory that Mr Burnham is now their chosen one.

Even that grizzled old Corbynite John McDonnell was moved to tears, which should give an indication of where Burnham stands on the political spectrum.

As he rides triumphantly back to Westminster ministers and assorted wannabes will be falling over each other to strew his path with palm leaves.

But if he does become PM, either by coronation or contest, what mandate does he have to effect the radical change he says the country needs?

Sir Keir’s own credentials are slim enough. He may have a huge majority but just one in five of those eligible to vote in 2024 voted Labour. Mr Burnham has no mandate at all.

We don’t know much about his beliefs, as he seems to vary them according to who is asking. What we do know is that he’s a tax-and-spend socialist who would drag his party and country to the Left.

If he has any integrity, he will drop the changey, hopey drivel and place a detailed prospectus before the people in a general election. So, will he? The Daily Mail isn’t holding its breath.