Andy Burnham just guaranteed half the UK will never vote for him – it only took 34 seconds.uk

It didn’t take long for backstabbing Andy Burnham – Labour’s Judas Iscariot who ​i​s now desperately trying to ​p​ortray himself as the party’s everyman candidate – to revert to type in a campaign video stuffed full of lazy tropes.

He likes to be known as the King of the North ​(did he ever mention ​that is where he’s from?)

Burnham wants a fast-track to Westminster so he can topple stuttering Starmer​ – but first he has to win Leave-backing Makerfield​.

There’s little time to waste, so Burnham has cobbled together a film​ and turned the by-election on June 18​ into a class war.

​​In it, bad actor Burnham is full of​ Manchester swagger​ despite happily turning his back on ​t​he city by throw​ing in the towel as mayor in order to fight a seat vacated by Labour sacrificial lamb Josh Simons.

And in his desperate pitch to voters in ​what is a two-way fight to the death with Reform it took him just 34 seconds to reference Margaret Thatcher – ​whom to many is Britain’s greatest post-war prime minister.

The intention was clear: It was to position himself as the antithesis of Nigel Farage, a man who he could be going head-to-head with for the keys to No 10.

Historically Farage, a former City commodities trader, ​l​avished praise ​on Thatcher, PM between 1979 and 1990, as an economic trailblazer who single-handedly turned the fortunes of Britain around.

Thirteen years after her death Burnham’s pointed comments – referencing the damage she inflicted – was intentional.

If Farage wants to emulate her then he needs to appeal to working-class voters in former industrial regions, ​like Makerfield, where she and her legacy is viewed with hatred.

Reform’s candidate is Robert Kenyon.

At the 2024 general election Simons got 18,202 votes and Kenyon 12,803.

Labour’s majority is just 5,399 or, in other words, political peanuts.

No wonder Burnham channelled his anger ​in a video stuffed full of northern colloquialisms in which he hammered Thatcher in an effort to hammer Farage.

​He ​is seen walk​ing the streets as locals greet him as ​returning messiah​, rather than machiavellian​, and in a well-rehearsed spiel said: “It was growing up in and around these streets that I saw what Thatcher’s governments did to places like this – the deindustrialisation, the drawing away of economic, social, and political power. It left places like ​Makerfiel​d behind and Britain has been on that path for the past 40 years.

“And it was a sense of injustice I got about the way this country is run that took me towards politics.”

Thatcher is credited with breaking the cycle of misery inflicted on Britain by the Labour governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan in the 1970s.

Burnham – who has twice before tried to become Labour leader and twice failed – represents more of the same from a party that hates wealth and despises those who work hard to create it.

Thatcher neutered the power of trade unions and helped make Britain a more competitive and market-driven economy through the privatisation of ailing state-owned industries.

Burnham ​said he would embark on a radical programme of renationalisation and, although he has curiously gone quiet on the topic, shunt Britain back into the arms of the EU.

In short, he’s after more of your money. Change? Don’t be so stupid. A Burnham government is more of the same – tax the middle classes to​ feed a ballooning benefits bill, spend​, and borrow more.

Aspiration? Forget it. His would be a programme of levelling down.

Don’t be fooled by all the “cheers, lad” quips in his chummy video because there’s one big elephant in the room.

He’s suddenly gone all coy on the subject of the EU.

It must just be pure coincidence that six in 10 in Makerfield were Leave voters at the 2016​ Brexit referendum.