There’s an old joke about Andy Burnham that has been recycled since he started making eyes at No. 10. A Blairite, a Brownite, a Milibandite, a Starmerite, an insider and an outsider walk into a bar. The barman asks: ‘What are you having, Andy?’

It might not be that funny but it’s a direct hit as a piece of political analysis, because there have been few more transparent examples of political shape-shifters than the current mayor of Greater Manchester. It’s not so much that he says one thing then does another – although there are plenty of examples of that – but rather that, over the course of his quarter-of-a-century-long political career (he was first elected to the Commons in 2001) Burnham has said whatever he considered would be political useful for him at the time, and when that usefulness changed, so would his view.

As one former close colleague of his told me years ago, the only thing worth knowing about Burnham is that he has no real views. He has zero interest in ideas and even fewer principles, but a strong interest in the business of being a politician, and how he can advance the cause of Andy Burnham. Understand that and you understand the man.

Two years ago, for example, Burnham made an unambiguous promise to the voters of Greater Manchester. Pressed specifically on the idea that he might choose at some point to run for parliament, he said he was ‘committed to my third term, absolutely’. So committed, it seems, that the moment the chance of a better job presented itself, Burnham quite happily stuck two fingers up to his mayoral constituents and ran off to Makerfield.

Credit where it’s due; Burnham’s shape-shifting has been brilliantly shameless. Take his current chosen status as the northern outsider who is coming down south to sort the country out. At the weekend he told the BBC: ‘I think Britain has been on the wrong path for 40 years.’ Burnham was not merely an MP for 16 of those 40 years, he was also at times a Home Office minister, minister of state for Health, chief secretary to the Treasury, secretary of state for Culture, Media and Sport and secretary of state for Health. Does he therefore think he was utterly ineffectual in those jobs? Or have they been simply pretended away, like so much of his career when it suits him to pretend to be something, and someone, else?

Burnham’s current shtick is portraying himself as having only really started to be involved in politics since he became mayor of Greater Manchester in 2017. A version of that was also his supposed USP in 2015, the latter of his two previous attempts at running for the Labour leadership, when he sought to position himself as the outsider candidate and attacked the ‘Westminster bubble’. He was brilliantly skewered by Evan Davis, after Burnham told him in an interview how disillusioned he was with modern politics: ‘You are modern politics. You went to Cambridge University and worked in a couple of think tanks. You became a special adviser. And now you want to become PM. What more insider beltway Westminster politician could there be?!’

As for being an outsider: Burnham claimed £17,000 a year to rent a London flat, despite owning another within walking distance of the Commons.

As a minister, Burnham was a mainstream New Labour figure, supportive of the Blair/Brown agenda and working with pro-market public service reforms. Today, he likes to be seen as the leader of the ‘soft left’, pushing for more state intervention and a broader form of populist economics – such as his bizarre assertion last year that the government is too ‘in hock’ to the bond markets.

But Burnham’s shape-shifting extends far beyond his own career. He has no compunction about performing a 180-degree volte face on his own actions when it is politically useful. Burnham has repeatedly sought to portray himself, for example, as the champion of official accountability – most notably over Hillsborough. But as health secretary, he and his predecessor reportedly rejected 81 requests for a public inquiry into the high rate of deaths at Stafford hospital. Campaigners at the time said Burnham was the main block on holding an inquiry in public. Instead, he set up the more limited Francis Inquiry.

In his 2021 mayoral manifesto, Burnham pushed for a Clean Air Zone which would charge polluting drivers £60 a day. But when an outcry meant it was no longer politically fashionable, he not only dropped the scheme but tried to present himself as the leading campaigner against charging – despite having backed the original scheme, despite having already installed hundreds of cameras and signs and despite having already spent tens of millions (one report says it wasted £106 million) before the scheme was abandoned. He then moved to arguing that the cameras were there for the police’s use to prevent and solve crimes.

Burnham is certainly a polished performer

Or take Israel and Palestine. In his 2015 run for the Labour leadership he praised Israel as ‘a democracy that has a long history of protecting minorities and promoting civil rights’. But as the political axis changed, so did Burnham’s views and by 2024 he was pushing the government to recognise Palestinian statehood ‘without further delay or equivocation’. That followed his demand alongside London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan for a ceasefire in Gaza.

More immediately, Burnham is now engaged through his proxies in a row with Wes Streeting after the latter said on Saturday that we should rejoin the EU. This would, of course, go down disastrously among Brexit-voting, Reform-supporting voters in Makerfield. But at last year’s Labour conference, the Mayor of Manchester was unambiguous in his support for rejoining: ‘I want to rejoin the EU.’ Now he is seeking to distance himself by arguing that this only a wish for some vague time in the future. But, yet again, this is Burnham saying one thing when it’s the politically easy thing to say and then saying something else when that becomes more politically expedient.

Burnham is certainly a polished performer. He has managed to play the role of northern outsider galloping to the rescue of the Labour party with supreme verve. But it is no more than the latest vehicle for the advancement of Andy Burnham. As for how long this one will last when the wind starts to change…