Ambition is, generally, a good thing. Anyone who aspires to become an MP has to be motivated and focused on getting elected. I remember Betty Boothroyd, a former Speaker of the House of Commons, suggesting that the desire to become an MP was like the grime underneath a miner’s fingernails: it cannot be scrubbed away.

So it isn’t unusual that ambitious Labour politicians should be plotting and scheming to supplant Sir Keir Starmer. What is surprising is that they should be so blatant about those desires, as the Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham has been , just days before the Labour Party conference.

Of course, I have seen politicians being blatant about their ambitions, over the years. I remember Theresa May appearing on Desert Island Discs in 2014 and then in a favourable art

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