Celia Walden: Burnham is becoming Labour’s Boris (not in a good way)

“It’s for a good cause.” After a few back and forths around the conference table with the Number 10 press team, that will have been the clincher. How badly can anything that’s raising money for Stand Up To Cancer realistically backfire? And maybe they were right. People don’t seem to be incensed by Andy Burnham’s “surprise” appearance on Celebrity Gogglebox on Friday night. Even with the nation on a war alert, even with a crucial budget to be delivered next week. In fact, the general feeling seems to be that, yeah, it’s the kind of thing the Prime Minister would do. To me, that’s a red flag. Ever since the guy I always end up talking politics with at my local gym called him “the Labour Boris”, I’ve been living in fear of this being true. We can’t have any more clowning from our PM. Surely we’re done with the gimmicks, the boosterism, and the turning of every occasion into an audition. We’ve seen where that gets you. From Burnham’s very first PMQs, however, there has been a sense of him enjoying the celebrity element – of him basking in the laughs and the fact that he is not, like his predecessor, a charisma-free zone. I can understand that enjoyment, just as I can understand why anyone in a job with a performative element might get slightly carried away at times. You see it (or rather hear it) with pilots, who get a little too fond of the sound of their own voice on that tannoy and start making endless jokes. You see it with priests and ministers who have watched Four Weddings and a Funeral a few too many times and fancy themselves as Rowan Atkinson . It’s definitely a thing with teachers and lecturers, some of whom aren’t so much focussed on imparting knowledge as being “the fun guy” all the students love. Mr Burnham might have been the geography teacher we all loved on Sunday night. You would absolutely want to share a bag of pork scratchings with him down the pub (even the man’s telly snacks were relatable). He could even bring his best mate, Steve (Rotheram), the equally likeable bloke sitting beside him on that Downing Street sofa. But do I feel any more reassured to know that Andy’s in charge of the country, now that I’ve seen him at his most “authentic” and “relatable”? Unless I’m mistaken this is Burnham’s fourth “personality-led” media appearance. There was a pub snack taste test back in August, that jolly japes interview on social media video series Career Ladder, LADbible’s Agree to Disagree, and now Celebrity Gogglebox . We’ve established that the man has a personality. The press team can tick that particular course correction off the list. Not only can he communicate far better than Keir Starmer, but entertain, charm. Now for the small matter of rigour, of accomplishment. Before swapping the despatch box for the telly box, Burnham pre-empted killjoys like me by saying: “I make no apology for trying to lead with a bit of lightness at times, a bit of humour. That’s the way I go at things and connect with people as best I can.” The lightness is all well and good when there’s been substance beforehand. And I can’t help but think that the best way a Prime Minister can connect with an increasingly febrile public is to start delivering on the promises made.