Can a former mayor make a prime minister? Andy Burnham posed exactly that question at an event in Altrincham in December 2019 - and unearthed footage of the moment has taken on new meaning as he bids to become Britain's next PM.
The clip - exclusively recorded by Altrincham Today - dates from December 3rd 2019, when Burnham addressed local businesses at an event organised by Altrincham BID at the Cresta Court hotel.
Then just two years into his first term as Mayor of Greater Manchester, Burnham used the occasion to make what was, at the time, a light-hearted aside about the political moment - but one that takes on new significance today.
"I won't make any reference at all to party politics this evening, I don't see that as part of my role, I'm here to bring people together," he told the room.
"Other than just to make one observation - we are living through an interesting experiment at the moment, and that is whether a former mayor can make a prime minister.
"I have to say that because I'm just interested in whether this succeeds or whether it's about to be killed stone dead. I don't know obviously, I just have an interest..."
Watch Andy Burnham talk at the Altrincham event in December 2019
The remark came nine days before the general election of December 12th 2019. The "former mayor" Burnham was referring to was Boris Johnson, who had served as Mayor of London from 2008 to 2016 before becoming Prime Minister in the summer of 2019.
The "experiment" was settled emphatically at that election, with Johnson's Conservatives winning a landslide with a majority of 80.
Johnson had called the snap election after Parliament repeatedly refused to approve his Brexit withdrawal agreement, gambling that a fresh majority would let him push it through.
Some have questioned whether Burnham should try and assert his own authority by calling an election should he succeed in becoming Prime Minister.
The speech at the Cresta Court - which went on to be converted into a migrant hotel in November 2024 - also provided an insight into how devolution could be a key feature of his premiership.
He told the room that what they were building in Greater Manchester was "part of the answer to the uncertainty the country is going through". The era in which "everything can be run from Whitehall and Westminster" was over, he argued, with cities "coming to the fore" and change being "driven from the bottom up".
That shift, he said, required a rethink of how the country was governed - and said devolution could deliver "a better way of doing things, working more closely alongside people rather than doing to people".
Burnham returned to Parliament yesterday as the newly elected MP for Makerfield, clearing a path to replace Sir Keir Starmer as leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister. Starmer announced his intention to resign yesterday.
