𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Rejoice, for the king has returned! Watching the nauseatingly overdone comeback of Andy Burnham, the so-called King of the North, and you’d be forgiven for expecting him to finish his journey by walking up the River Thames.

Ahead of his expected coronation as prime minister, Labour MPs have been practically euphoric in their joy at the big bruiser coming back to town. But the most revealing detail is not in the conquering hero himself, but the company he keeps.

Look closely at the faces slowly coalescing about this new arrival, and a familiar set of fingerprints emerges – those of Ed Miliband. Perhaps ill-pleased with being rejected before by the British public, Ed has found a new way to ooze himself ever closer to the levers of power.

Photographed accompanying Mr Burnham on his triumphant train ride from Manchester to London was Abby Tomlinson, the woman who, as a teenager in 2015, created the “Milifandom”. I was at university when that absurd digital trend began, an online movement for the wets of university societies to defend Mr Miliband from his right-minded critics.

A decade on, and she is sitting at the side of the victor. Given her choice in career, it might perhaps be fair to say that affiliations more broadly remain the same – her allegiance to Mr Miliband perhaps worn a little less open, so as bot to overshadow her support for her new boss.

Then there is Grace Pritchard, Mr Burnham’s new spokeswoman, who choreographed his carefully staged “class photo” with the assembled Labour MPs upon his return. Presumably, she had to ask them to hide the daggers they had so eagerly thrust into Keir Starmer’s back just moments earlier?

As the cameras readied, this eagle-eyed reporter spotted her warmly greeting Mr Miliband as he swanned in to take his place in the picture. She had been seconded to the Burnham campaign fresh out of her tenure working for the net zero minister as a special adviser.

Taken on their own, these instances are small and isolated. Put them together, and they paint a more worrisome picture.

There is an operation forming around the presumed next prime minister, one that is staffed by people out of step with the needs of the British people. Instead, they are committed, it would seem, to the architect of the Government’s headlong rush to net zero.

That is what should concern voters already weary of soaring energy bills and a war on North Sea oil and gas. If Mr Miliband’s allies are embedding themselves at the heart of a Burnham administration, the obvious question follows: will net zero now be accelerated still further, whatever the cost to household finances and British industry?

Mr Burnham may be the man holding the keys. But the British public is entitled to ask who, exactly, will be whispering in his ear, and whether they have heard those whispers before.