How Andy Burnham is rebranding as Labour’s man of the people – POLITICO

Even Andy Burnham’s fans acknowledge that the Greater Manchester mayor, who’s attempting a return to parliament so that he can become prime minister, is a career man.

“Inside him is a cold-hearted lizard of a politician,” said one of Burnham’s chief cheerleaders in Westminster, granted anonymity to speak frankly about the man whose highest hopes would see him heading to No. 10 Downing Street within weeks of a possible victory in the Makerfield by-election.

“You don’t become a mayor, you don’t go into frontline Blairite and then Brownite politics, without knowing who to speak to, whose hands to shake, at the core of who you are,” the MP went on. “But exterior to that, he’s wrapped around it a genuine human being.”