Can I shock you? I like Andy Burnham. Not in a gay way. More that, when he comes on the TV, I don’t throw a sock at him. As hard as I try, I can’t bring myself to hate our new Prime Minister. He seems a nice bloke, a committed family man, sincere in his desire to house the homeless, bring the country together, and promote fewer bad things and more good things. I also like the Smiths, cricket, and pubs; if we went for a pint, we’d probably get along. Yet premiers are not judged by their fondness for Scampi Fries. More’s the pity; them’s the breaks.

An algorithmic parody of what a Northern Prime Minister should be like – Andy Capp with the nuclear code

But I do struggle to take Burnham seriously. As I’ve said elsewhere, he seems almost ChatGPT-generated, an algorithmic parody of what a Northern Prime Minister should be like – Andy Capp with the nuclear codes. Chips and gravy and a pint of Tetley’s. Football. Oasis. Trams. Wanging on about Margaret Thatcher. An inability to go 20 seconds without mentioning he’s from above Watford Gap. If this chippiness was ploughed into getting an Ashes Test for Headingley or Old Trafford, I wouldn’t mind. But he insists on doing more – on actually being Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. I just find this ludicrous.

Perhaps I should be more scared. This is, after all, the most left-wing government of my lifetime, rhetorically committed to doing a whole host of mad and bad things. From wealth taxes and mass council housebuilding to nationalising water and appeasing the WASPI women, Burnham and his outriders have dabbled with all manner of stupid and defunct leftie ideas. But being on my fifth Prime Minister in four years of political journalism, I must confess that none of this really worries me. My basic assumption is that none of it will happen. Who can really fear a man for whom the happiest day of his life was opening an office above a Slug and Lettuce? What can we really expect from a man whose only three previous contributions to political life are presiding over the Mid Staffs scandal, losing to Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn and painting some buses yellow?

I would give several limbs and at least one testicle to be able to write like Allister Heath. But where I depart from the Savonarola of Middle England is that I see politics through the lens of cock-up rather than conspiracy. Having seen how the sausages are made, I have the impression that no politician really knows what they are doing. They are victims of events; they have general ambitions, a few good team members, and some policy initiatives they’ve batted around for a while. But then they get two bad headlines and they’re spooked. They all just drift and fizzle out.

With a Chancellor of the Exchequer as endearingly bland as John Healey, I can’t see Burnham getting socialism in one country past the Treasury bean-counters, Soviet-style 10-year-plans or not. There is no money, as per usual. As this week’s leader highlighted, Burnham is stuck between the Scylla of Labour’s fiscal rules and manifesto commitments and the Charybdis of his desire to spend. The two cannot be reconciled unless he calls an election. But with a Burnham bounce still uncertain, does he really want to go to the country asking if he can hike all our taxes?

But maybe he would. Maybe he would win a reduced majority some time in the autumn on a manifesto promising to hike taxes only on the very richest. Nigel Farage would be stuffed, Kemi Badenoch disappointed, Ed Davey trailing in his wake. Burnham would be triumphant, able to replace the national anthem with ‘Cigarettes & Alcohol’ at will. But he’d still have no plan for growth. Britain would still be vulnerable to market crises, energy disruption and the vicissitudes of a darkening world. The sums still wouldn’t add up. Before too long, Healey would be in the same place as all his recent predecessors: hiking taxes on the majority, by hook or by crook.

By which point, Burnham would – or will – be just as unpopular as Keir Starmer, Rishi Sunak and all the others were all too soon into their respective premierships. The media beast needs feeding; the attention spans of the electorate are short; the structural problems that have so far reduced us as a nation too intractable. All this guff about fundamentally changing the country is as hollow and pointless as it was when uttered by the last half a dozen occupants of No. 10. But we all suspend our disbelief once more: those on the Left because they want to have something to hope for, those of us on the Right because we need something to complain about. Thank you for Miatta Fahnbulleh, Prime Minister. I’ll get at least half a dozen columns out of her.

For all my cynicism, there remains something funny about the idea that Burnham is the latest in a line stemming back through Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill, Lord Salisbury and all the rest. There was at least something stolid about Starmer. Burnham seems so much lighter, so much less substantial. Starmer tried to make up for his own political inadequacies through sheer hard work; Burnham attempts to do so through TikTok. Both will end up as footnotes in our history. The annoying thing is all the rigmarole we have to go through to get there. PMQs, policy launches, ministerial scandals, stupid Budgets, even stupider social media videos – the game commences, for the usual fee, plus expenses.

Unhappy the land that has no heroes! No, unhappy the land that needs heroes. Here we all are in late Britain, sinking slowly into the sea, becoming ever poorer, sicker, stupider and fatter, changing fundamentally as a people and nation, listless, confused and worn out. It is a strange cosmic joke that we have been given a comedy Northern premier at this terrible juncture. But we must make do. Bloody, tears, toil and that jazz.

Who knows: aaar Andy, the delightful family man, the music aficionado, pint-sinking, utterly inconsequential let’s-give-him-a-go-until-the-end-of-the-season Prime Minister, might surprise us all. Or me, at least. Prime Minister Burnham, if you seek to convince the nation… come to the Two Chairmen. Mr Burnham, buy a pint at the Two Chairmen. Mr Burnham, prove me wrong. The joke isn’t funny any more.