Andy Burnham wants everybody to like him. But you can’t please them all.

Angela-Rayner-Burnham-enemy

Angela Rayner won’t be happy if Andy Burnham doesn’t give her what she wants (Image: Getty)

This desire to be liked is one of the PM-in-waiting’s biggest weaknesses. It could make it impossible for him to take the tough decisions our ailing nation needs. He has to show some tough love, not the sloppy stuff we’ve seen so far. That may mean cutting welfare or tightening immigration rules, neither of which will endear him to Labour’s left-wing base. He also needs to resist the brutal tax hikes Labour MPs are demanding. They will backfire horribly, by killing economic sentiment and growth, just as Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s blitz did. But it won’t be easy. Labour’s left will never forgive him. Especially if it works.

Personally, I’m not convinced Burnham has the stomach for it. I suspect he’ll end up as Keir Starmer Mark II. His easy charm and dark blue T-shirt can only take him so far. But maybe I’m wrong. Because Burnham has suddenly flashed his teeth, and the recipient isn’t smiling. Labour MPs are excited now, and not just because they’ve ditched dreary old Sir Keir. They’re hoping to bag a high-profile job in the new regime. Burnham is besieged by job hunters. He can’t hire them all.

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The battle is especially fierce at Cabinet level, where those who smoothed Burnham’s path to power expect to be rewarded with one of the great offices of state. Most attention has focused on the Chancellor’s job, the one closest to the PM. Ed Miliband is desperate to bag it. Most sane people are equally desperate that he doesn’t. But there’s another leftie ally Burnham needs to keep happy. Her name? Angela Rayner.

We haven’t heard much from Red Ange lately, which is unusual. She’s normally impossible to miss. Perhaps the furore over her stamp duty bill has dimmed her flame-haired ambition? I’m kidding. It burns as brightly as ever.

When she resigned from Starmer’s Cabinet, I instantly predicted she’d be back for revenge. Sir Keir’s head has now been served up on a plate, but that was never going to satisfy her. She’s after a senior role in Burnham’s administration. This week, though, she suffered an uncomfortable setback.

Rayner isn’t part of Burnham’s inner circle, which includes political titans such as, er, Louise Haigh and Anneliese Midgley. Even so, she clearly expects a Cabinet post. According to the Financial Times, she may not get one. The paper says Burnham has sidelined her. Ouch. So maybe he does have teeth after all.

One Rayner ally admitted: “There have been reports that Rayner is being frozen out and there have been reports that she is advising Andy on devolution. The truth is somewhere in the middle.” So she’s still in with a shot, but it’s hardly a ringing endorsement of one of Labour’s biggest hitters after Burnham himself.

Rayner has been making her pitch. In a speech last night, she openly grovelled for a senior position, brown-nosing Burnham’s Greater Manchester Bee Network as devolution’s “biggest success story outside London”. She also praised him for having a plan “worth fighting for”. I hope Burnham got the message. It’s pretty easy to decipher: “Gis a job!”

Rayner reportedly wants her old brief at the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government, but Burnham is said to be considering breaking it up instead. So has he got the guts to slap down her ambitions?

Personally, I don’t think he has. Rayner will make an awful lot of noise if she’s frozen out, and Burnham does hate upsetting people. So I think he’ll cave. Our next PM is very good at making friends. At some point, he’ll have to make enemies too. But I reckon he’ll duck this tough call. And all the other ones too.