Burnham the crowd-pleaser knows how to make friends, but he’ll be defined by how he makes enemies | Andy Beckett

The prime minister’s instinct to not upset people is set against a lifelong desire to effect transformative change. The two may not sit together easily Andy Burnham has always liked to be liked. Studying at secondary school near Liverpool in the 1980s, he writes in his autobiography and manifesto, Head North, “involved me walking something of a tightrope. Because of my mum and dad’s insistence that I should aim for university, I would largely try to keep up to date with my work. But … I…