DAN HODGES: It's not sophisticated but Burnham's 'Vote for me, I'm not Keir' slogan could well be enough in a snap poll

It was Ed Miliband who gave the game away. Asked on Tuesday by independent MP Iqbal Mohamed why the Government had taken so long to announce its package of sanctions on Israel, the Foreign Secretary replied: ‘I say bluntly to the Honourable Member that we should have acted earlier. It has taken the new Prime Minister to come in and recognise the gravity of the situation and the degree of public concern on these questions.’Last week, in his first statement to the House of Commons since becoming Prime Minister, Andy Burnham began by praising Sir Keir Starmer, who had just announced he was stepping away from Parliament. ‘His leadership took our party from one of its worst defeats to its best victories and created a platform to change this country for the better,’ he said.‘We will use it well and we wish his family the very best for the future.’But now, having praised his predecessor, Burnham intends to adopt a new stance towards the former member for Holborn and St Pancras. He will define the first stage of his premiership, and prepare for a snap election in 2027, by burying him.‘When Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair, one of the reasons he failed was because he could never decide whether to embrace his legacy or distance himself from it,’ a minister explained to me.‘Andy isn’t going to make the same mistake. He’s going to cut Keir loose.’Brown’s confusion was in part a product of his and Blair’s complex personal relationship. Co-architects of New Labour, their friendship soured as Blair clung to power, breaching – at least in Brown’s eyes – a pact that he would hand over the keys to No 10 midway through the second term of a Labour government.Burnham and Starmer have no such complications. At the moment both men basically hate each other. Last week, in his first statement to the House of Commons since becoming Prime Minister, Andy Burnham began by praising Sir Keir Starmer‘Keir thinks Andy stabbed him in the back,’ another minister revealed, ‘and Andy basically thinks Keir’s trying to sabotage him. When he announced he was stepping down from Parliament he didn’t even bother to tell No 10 he was doing it.’Suspicions within Downing Street that Starmer and his supporters are working to undermine their fledgling administration were heightened following an intervention from Steve Reed, a leading ally of the former PM, in which he took a thinly disguised swipe at Burnham’s cherished devolution plans.‘You can’t make the rest of the country richer by making London poorer,’ the former Communities Secretary chided.Reed’s comments were viewed with particular exasperation by Burnham’s team because they came soon after the Government had moved the writ for the Holborn and St Pancras by-election.‘This is typical of Keir,’ one member of the Prime Minister’s inner circle hit back.‘He’s sulking and acting like a child. It’s always someone else’s fault with him. He just won’t take any personal responsibility for how everything ended.’But among Burnham’s team there is a determination to turn the enmity between the two camps to their political advantage.And the way they intend to do that is by launching overboard any element of Starmer’s programme that is not nailed to the deck. ‘There are going to be a series of areas where we will show Andy’s agenda is markedly different from Keir’s,’ a Labour source told me.‘Obviously you’ve seen that with the sanctions. We’re going to expand that to other areas, like our policy on Neets [young people not in education, employment or training], the devolution agenda and welfare.’On Wednesday, Burnham was widely perceived to have blundered when he told Kemi Badenoch ‘national security can’t come at the expense of social security’. But one minister I spoke to insisted he intended to double down on his argument that direct cuts were not the way to reduce the ballooning welfare bill.Something that will put him at direct odds with Starmer, who tried – and infamously failed – to force his party to accept £5billion of benefits bill reductions.‘It’s not exactly a case of Andy deliberately trying to define himself against Keir,’ the minister explained.‘It’s just that he’s got a completely different outlook.‘He doesn’t think you can just axe people’s benefits, because that doesn’t solve the problem. You have to give people pathways out of poverty. Andy’s seen from his time as mayor of Manchester that if you don’t, you create further problems elsewhere in the system and it ends up costing you more.’Despite the denial, there is a clear strategy behind Burnham’s efforts to put clear red water between himself and the man he replaced. Part of which is a recognition his opponents are trying to do exactly the opposite, and directly lash him to Starmer’s disastrous government. In 2024, Starmer won a 172-seat majority by delivering a clear message: ‘Vote for me, I’m not Jeremy Corbyn.’ In 2027, Burnham will deploy a similar oneOn Wednesday Badenoch struck a nerve when she charged: ‘He is pretending that he is the change candidate but the fact is he is still failing to cut welfare, he is still paying to hand over a sovereign territory and he is still not funding defence. On the issues that really matter, is he not just Continuity Keir?’As one Labour MP said: ‘Until now the Tories haven’t worked out how best to attack Andy. That’s the first of her lines that’s landed. He needs to be careful of the Continuity Keir stuff.’Burnham’s team are alive to the danger. But there is also one other major factor in play.Despite constant denials, it’s clear that within No 10 that plans are afoot to call a snap election at some point during the first half of next year. Reform are continuing to implode, leaving the Right hopelessly split.The Burnham Bounce is proving to be more substantial than first perceived, with aides increasingly buoyed by polling that shows positive cut-through for their man’s more down-to-earth style of engagement. And more positive economic figures are creating what some MPs are calling ‘a window of opportunity’.‘I’m not exactly delighted at the idea,’ said one Labour MP in a relatively marginal seat, ‘but it’s pretty clear what they’re planning. Let Reform burn themselves up a bit more, shore up the Left flank with some stuff on Israel and the environment, then go to the country and say, “I’ve done my best but to really clear up the Tories' mess and Starmer’s mess, I need my own mandate”.’In 2024, Starmer won a 172-seat majority by delivering a clear message: ‘Vote for me, I’m not Jeremy Corbyn.’ In 2027, Burnham will deploy a similar one. ‘Vote for me, I’m not Keir Starmer.’It’s not the most sophisticated slogan. But if his opponents keep fighting each other like rats in a sack, it might just be enough.