QUENTIN LETTS: This was Burnham's big moment and he blithered on about some 'triple helix'. MPs squinted in puzzlement...

See more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred Source Published: 13:48 EDT, 1 September 2026 | Updated: 14:17 EDT, 1 September 2026 That was damp and underwhelming. The moment had come for Andy Burnham to make his Commons debut as prime minister. The dreaded hour could be dodged no more.He wandered in at 3.34pm, looking at the floor. For a few minutes he had to wait in a throng of greasers near the front bench.Education Secretary Lucy Powell fussed over him, removing lint from the back of his jacket. Louise Haigh, First Minister, stood alongside, rigid. Is it possible lame Lucy makes Ms Haigh itch with annoyance?Mr Burnham did not have enough room to stand squarely. In the scrum he had to reach his left arm backwards to grab the Speaker's chair for balance. He angled his whole body away from the bench he was about to occupy. The posture reeked of reluctance.Eventually Foreign Office questions ended. Ms Haigh urged forward her hesitant protege, a farmer prodding her goat through a gate.Other MPs would normally scatter out of a PM's way but Mr Burnham found his path blocked by Ed Miliband and even by young Hamish Falconer. The PM ceded the ground to them. It was not, somehow, what one expected from the new skipper of our destinies.At 3.38pm he began a statement entitled 'Direction of Government'. It started well. He coughed up proper but restrained words of respect for Sir Keir Starmer, whose decision to quit as an MP had been announced earlier, to the ululations and breast-beating of a grieving nation. Andy Burnham addressing the House as he made his Commons debut as prime minister this afternoonAs Mr Burnham burbled on about Sir Keir's 'lifetime of public service', Labour MPs watched closely. They had cheered his arrival but not excessively so.Soon he was on to Ukraine, asserting that Britain would continue to support Kyiv against Russia. His voice strengthened and I thought, briefly, 'ooh, this could be rather good'.That little frisson soon faded. Before long the energy levels dropped, the delivery became staccato – almost like a computerised railway announcement, with random emphasis on certain words - and the content was drab.We learned how thrilled he was recently to meet the Lib Dem leader of Cornwall council. The new No 10 North operation was apparently going to help Cornwall, even though it is in the south-west of England. Part of the new focus on mayors was going to be new 'visitor levies'. A new tax. Just what we need.Such was the level of fascination on the Labour benches by now that three Labour backbenchers, Wrexham's Andrew Ranger, Truro's Jayne Kirkham and Calder Valley's Josh Fenton-Glynn, were mucking about at the far end of the chamber, laughing with each other and paying sparse interest to their new leader.It would be wrong to say that he had lost the House but he was not wowing it. The performance was not electric. It was adequate. Better than the nasal knight's was. But it felt provincial. It did not tingle as it should. As it must. We may have another bore on our hands.He was soon enthusing about Theresa May and promising to 'develop the triple helix approach to economics by entwining business, academia and government'. The House: 'Eh?'Here he was on his first parliamentary outing as PM, the one day he could be sure the House and the country would give him a friendly hearing, and he was blithering on about some triple helix. Was it a move from gymnastics?MPs squinted in puzzlement. Mr Burnham himself was soon peering, as he repeatedly removed his spectacles. This made his eyelashes more noticeable but his speech even fuzzier.The new Chancellor, John Healey sported a wound on his bald pate. Mr Healey was man-spreading like a champ. Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden had his legs tightly crossed, v. Kenneth Williams.Equalities minister Bridget Phillipson, sacked from Education, looked even crosser than normal. The new power-scowler is Ms Haigh. She has a sharklike intensity to her, an air of cruelty that her boss entirely lacks. Prime ministers are seldom this spongy.