Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. With Parliament in recess and Nigel Farage in hiding from Count Binface, one Andrew Murray Burnham and his team have sensed their window of opportunity – and gone for it. Ruthlessly, relentlessly and, it must be said, rather successfully – at least on the surface.

Three separate polls have put Labour in front of Reform for the first time in well over a year. And no wonder. Burnham spent his first week handing out sweeties. The £45 energy cut, tax breaks for state pensioners, business-rate cuts for pubs, social clubs and live music venues, bus fares capped at £2, a multi-million-pound rough-sleeping initiative: truly, it was quite the political sugar rush.

Before long, however, some of the grown-ups began drawing attention to the astonishing abundance of E-numbers and the lack of nutritional value in these policies. Green campaigners questioned the wisdom of subsidising – and therefore incentivising – electricity use at a time of ‘climate crisis’ (as if on cue, large swathes of Europe burst into flames). They also pointed out that most households rely on gas to heat their homes in winter, so vulnerable energy users would be no better off at all.

On the pension front, he was accused of engineering a two-tier taxation system and also of penalising people who had done the right thing and saved for their retirement.

Others pointed out the obvious contradictions of a ‘decentralisation’ champion such as Burnham imposing a blanket cap on bus fares, thus taking power away from local authorities.

Three separate polls have put Labour in front of Reform for the first time in well over a year. And no wonder. Burnham spent his first week handing out sweeties, writes Sarah Vine

As for the much-vaunted boost to the hospitality sector, excluding restaurants from the rate cut is, once again, unfair – especially since so many pubs now also serve food.

But perhaps Burnham’s most divisive act in these first two whirlwind weeks has been the establishment of a ‘No10 North’ to rival the one in Westminster.

It is quickly becoming clear that when he talks airily of being a Prime Minister who intends to govern for ‘all of Britain’, he’s not talking about anywhere south of the Watford Gap.

From pictures of the Prime Minister’s motorcade rolling the wrong way along a one-way street in Manchester to (hastily denied) proposals to reform council tax in ways that would make homeowners in London and the South East pay vastly more than the rest of the country, it’s clear he intends to level up the North at the expense of the folks down south.

After all, let’s not forget that London and the South East alone generate 45 per cent of the UK’s entire tax revenue. All that hard work cannot go unpunished by a Labour Prime Minister who appears to have a chip the size of the Isle of Wight on his shoulder.

If this were a Conservative PM, the BBC and others would be in uproar. There would be accusations of high-handedness, entitlement, elitism – and rightly so. But for the usual reason – institutional Left-wing bias – none of his antics seem to raise an eyebrow.

Instead, he gets a cosy fireside chat with Gary Lineker and a very light grilling from Laura Kuenssberg. ‘So, Mr Burnham, when did you first realise you were the Messiah?’

Where is the plan for growth? What about defence (he obfuscated on the need to increase the budget to 3 per cent of GDP)? And does anyone really care where Cabinet sits, so long as it gets the job done?

It’s all so performative. Especially from someone who read English at Cambridge. When is someone going to tell him he’s the Prime Minister, not playing the tambourine in The Smiths?

No10 North seems to me a gigantic vanity project – a huge white elephant. Premises, security, logistics – none of this stuff comes cheap. Burnham’s team claims it’s all already ‘baked in’ to existing departmental budgets.

But even if that were the case (which, inevitably, it won’t be: some estimates say that the long-term bill will be about £100million), what about all the extra time, expense and inconvenience of shuffling civil servants, Spads, ministers and other staff between London and Manchester – including Burnham, who apparently prefers travelling there by private jet?

It’s all so performative. Especially from someone who read English at Cambridge, and whose Cabinet is composed of 61 per cent Oxbridge graduates. When is someone going to tell him he’s the Prime Minister, not playing the tambourine in The Smiths?

All this waste of time and Other People’s Money stems from two things: Burnham’s gigantic ego and his tiresome and immature wish to maintain his nice-guy image, and cast himself as the ultimate centrist dad. I hate to twist his melon (to quote that great Mancunian philosopher Shaun Ryder) but I’m afraid he’s in for quite a shock.

There is almost no position more perilous in politics than being the coming man (or woman). The higher people’s expectations, the further there is to fall – and trust me, there is always a fall.

Burnham’s real problem is that he has spent so long being the Labour Party’s political heartthrob, becoming an effective Prime Minister is going to be really hard for him.

Because if there is one thing that running the country does to everyone, without exception or mercy, it is to make a person unpopular. The only real variable is how long it takes – and just how loathed they become. And that, it strikes me, is not something Eyelashes Andy is at all prepared for.

The amount of time this man spends on TikTok making ‘hilarious’ memes of himself is proof of this. Rating pub snacks and AI posters, filming cringe-worthy comedy skits: it’s all designed to show how approachable and likeable he is.

Burnham while Manchester mayor at the Salford Lads Club, a site of homage for Smiths fans

If he wanted to be popular, he should have stayed in his Manchester eyrie. But he didn’t. He got ambitious. He orchestrated a well-planned coup, and now he’s trying to have his cake and eat it. Well, it’s not going to work.

The truth is, politics is like parenting. You start out thinking you’re going to do it differently from your parents/friends and make none of their mistakes. You’ll have a water birth, your children will only eat organic, you will never raise your voice or feel like pouring yourself a large gin and tonic after the school run. You soon realise this is complete nonsense. Just like politics, parenting is a messy business, and in many ways an exercise in expectation management.

You quickly realise that, much as you would like to, you can’t be your child’s friend – otherwise, it becomes impossible to impose any discipline or teach them the hard lessons they sometimes need to learn.

That is not to say you can’t be their advocate, their protector, their adviser. But if you try to make them like you, they won’t ever respect you. And respect is a very important part of governance, both in the home and in public life.

Burnham has not understood this. He’s like a weak parent handing out sweets to buy hugs and smiles – not realising this is only going to make matters worse in the long run.

And what’s there to respect in a man who has come to power with no mandate based on 24,927 votes in the Makerfield by-election, a figure that represents 0.052 per cent of the British electorate?

So far, all he has done is to paralyse an already ailing housing market, terrify Middle England with plans of a death tax to fund social care, introduce divisive policies that have got up people’s noses, patronise young people by telling them they needn’t aspire to university (even though he himself benefited from a free gold-plated Oxbridge education) – and move the machinery of government to Manchester on a whim.

It’s going to be a very long summer.