WAVING his mic like a maraca, DJ for the night Andy Burnham joked to his audience: “This goes out to all the politicians in the room.”
The mayor then spun I Wanna Be Adored by local heroes and Burnham favourites .
Andy Burnham with wife Frankie and daughter Rosie last night after becoming Makerfield’s new MP Credit: AP
Ex-flame Marie-France van Heel recalls her first meeting with Burnham as a long-haired student with a ‘monobrow’ who declared he wanted ‘to be an MP’ Credit: Andy Burnham
His quip, at a do in 2023, might have been aimed at many vainglorious politicians that fill the houses of Westminster.
But for those who know , the shiny new MP for Makerfield, it was a remark that offers a window into his own psyche.
As a Labour insider reveals in a wry understatement: “He likes to be popular.”
Now Burnham is about to discover how much adoration there is for him among Labour colleagues in the Westminster bubble he’s railed against for so long.
There’s a gag doing the rounds among politicos that lampoons the shifting sands of Burnham’s career.
It goes: A Blairite, a Brownite and a Corbynite walk into a pub, and the barman asks: “What are you drinking, Andy?”
It perfectly parodies Burnham’s chameleon career. So who is the real Andy Burnham?
A dad rocker who sports Gazelles and knocks out indie hits on his guitar, he’s long cultivated the image of an ordinary Northern working-class bloke.
Wannabe PM Burnham taking part in a DJ battle Credit: United We Stream
The ambitious MP as Culture Minister heading into No10 in 2008 Credit: Times Newspapers Ltd
Once asked by to name his favourite biscuit, Cambridge-educated Burnham, 56, replied bizarrely: “Beer, chips and gravy.”
Critics have labelled such sentiments as his “lame Phoenix Nights shtick”, in reference to the sitcom.
Burnham’s fondness for wearing a black or white T-shirt under a suit jacket led to ex-Labour MP Tom Harris saying he resembles Rab C Nesbitt from the .
Harris wrote: “There’s something patronising about a well-off, middle-class politician, albeit one with working-class roots, dressing the way he presumably thinks poor people dress — scruffily and cheaply.”
Taking centre stage next to PM Gordon Brown at 2009 Labour Party Conference in Brighton Credit: Alamy
With his children Jimmy, left, Annie, right, and Rosie
Drive some seven miles south from Burnham’s new Makerfield constituency, and you’ll find his childhood village of Culcheth, surrounded by rolling Cheshire farmland.
With a village green at its heart, it boasts a golf club, upmarket and a wine bar.
The old Burnham family home is on a road, ironically called Common Lane, which featured in an article on the Cheshire Live website under the headline, “Warrington’s millionaire’s row: The five most expensive streets.”
Andrew Murray Burnham was born in Old Roan in the suburb of Aintree in January 1970 to Kenneth, a telephone engineer, and Eileen, a receptionist.
Drive seven miles south of Makerfield and you reach Culcheth, Burnham’s childhood village Credit: PP.
Burnham’s former ‘millionaire’s row’ home in Culcheth – having been modified and made larger since he left Credit: PP.
He was the middle of three boys — the eldest Tom and younger brother Nick both became headteachers — and the family moved to Culcheth when Andy was a year old.
The village is halfway between Liverpool and Manchester which has helped shape his identity.
Burnham tells the story of a trip to Goodison Park with his dad to watch his beloved play Manchester City.
Spotting the mayor in the crowd, the City fans began singing “You Scouse bastard”. Everton supporters then serenaded Burnham with a chant of “You Manc bastard.”
Andrew Murray Burnham was born in Old Roan in the Liverpool suburb of Aintree in January 1970 Credit: Andy Burnham
In 1992, Burnham’s ex Frankie appeared on ITV’s Blind Date to boost her dream of becoming a children’s TV presenter Credit: ITV
It prompted the MP to say: “The truth is, I am both.”
Brought up a Catholic, Burnham describes his identity as British first rather than English. He tells how his Irish ancestors left “Drogheda for Liverpool in the late 1800s”.
Driving into Culcheth, visitors are greeted by a large sign nailed to a wooden fence saying “Support local . Don’t vote Labour.”
Passing a number of sprawling properties on Common Lane — one currently on the market for £1.5million — the Burnhams’ old family home nestles behind a neatly-trimmed privet hedge.
Living opposite is Ian Riley, the former head of maths at Burnham’s St Aelred’s Roman Catholic High School, in nearby Newton-le-Willows.
“With Andy, it’s what you see is what you get,” he tells me.
“He’s been a committed socialist, a member, since he was 14 or 15. Is he working class? In his head, I think so. He thinks working class.
“I used to give the Burnham boys a lift to school if they missed the bus and taught elder brother Nick.
“I don’t necessarily agree with Andy’s all the way but I would have voted for him if I lived in his constituency.”
In his book Head North, Burnham wrote how Ian had told him that he’d made the O-level set — rather than the lower CSE class — “by the skin of my teeth”.
Burnham wrote: “I didn’t dare admit to him that I had copied from the person next to me in the maths test. However, it served as a big wake-up call.”
Ian bumped into Burnham in Culcheth when he was Secretary, adding: “It’s quite a buzz when you walk down the road and a Cabinet minister walks towards you and says, ‘Hello, sir’.”
The Burnhams lived in Common Lane for 18 years, before selling the house in 1996. Today, following major improvements after they left, it is worth around £1.3million.
Affable Ian, 79, added: “The house was a lot smaller when the Burnhams lived there.
“His parents kept it immaculate. They’re a really nice family.
The MP credits The Smiths and their singer Morrissey as the catalyst for his evolution “from a mid-80s scally into a late-80s student”.
Burnham’s other great love was Everton football club.
A season ticket holder, in 1984 he made his first TV appearance after invading the Highfield pitch when the Toffees beat Southampton in that year’s semi-final at Arsenal’s old ground.
The man who wants to be Britain’s next PM was picked up by the cameras, careering across the pitch wearing a canary-yellow jumper.
His dubious fashion sense two years later would encompass a permed mullet, as sported by Merseyside footballers and Barry Grant from the Liverpool soap .
A keen fan who played for Lancashire boys, as a teenager Burnham once ran on the pitch at Old Trafford after a Test match.
His brother Nick recalled: “Andy being Andy, he swiped (ex-England skipper) ’s sun hat as a souvenir. David Gower turned round, took it back and told Andy where to go in no uncertain terms.”
Burnham was one of four pupils from his school to make it to Oxbridge in his year.
Reading English at Fitzwilliam College, , he admits he initially suffered from “severe imposter syndrome”.
Yet his knowledge of the trendy Manchester music scene — he’d seen The Smiths and The Stone Roses live — gave him social kudos.
On the first night of his second year, he impressed a new student who was Dutch, lived in and “loved The Smiths”.
Marie-France van Heel — known as Frankie — remembers of that first meeting that long-haired Burnham had a “monobrow” and said he wanted “to be an MP”.
The couple began . In 1992 Frankie appeared on ITV’s to boost her dream of becoming a children’s TV presenter.
She picked Will from Surrey and they went on a date to . Burnham admits he “watched the TV from behind the sofa through my fingers”.
The Blind Date pair didn’t hit it off. Will accused her of being a “cold fish” before she threw a cushion at him.
Backstage Frankie is said to have told him: “F*** off, I never want to see you again.”
Yet fate would bring them face to face once more 11 years later.
Then the Culture Secretary, Burnham walked into a Commons bar in Westminster with Frankie and they bumped into Will from Surrey.
It emerged that Will Harris was now marketing director of the . Burnham “got a lot of teasing” from Labour MPs.
He and Frankie had married in 2000 and have three children, Jimmy, Rosie and Annie.
In 2010, aged 40, Frankie had a double mastectomy after a genetic test showed she could be at risk from . Her sister Claire died from the disease at 39.
After university, Burnham initially went into journalism, working on trade magazines for the container storage industry.
His “springboard” into politics came when colleague Eleanor Mills told him her stepmum, Labour MP Tessa Jowell, was looking for a researcher.
In 1998 he became a Labour special adviser, and at the 2001 won the safe seat of Leigh, close to Culcheth, aged 31.
Despite his later contempt for Westminster politics, Burnham was a loyalist in the government and rose quickly through the ranks to become a junior minister.
Aged 38, he was in the Cabinet, serving as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Culture Secretary and Health Secretary under .
In 2012 he was booed and heckled at a memorial service marking the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster.
It spurred Burnham on to raise the issue in Cabinet which led to the launch of a second inquiry, fresh inquests and revelations of the cover-up of police failures.
Once a committed Blairite, he would serve in hard-left Jeremy Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet.
A remain voter, he failed twice in contests, losing to and then Corbyn.
Moving increasingly to the left — he now backs the nationalisation of water and energy — he quit to become Mayor of Manchester in 2017.
Now he’s heading south in a bid to seize No10 — a job that has chewed up six PMs in a decade.
The man accused of being an arch political chameleon may soon discover that prime ministers aren’t often adored.
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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