MANCHESTER mayor Andy Burnham has turned up the heat on the government as he made it clear he wants to replace Sir Keir Starmer as Labour leader.

After days of mounting speculation, Mr Burnham used a series of media interviews to outline his alternative policy agenda and underline his ambitions, clearly “trailing his coat” in the words of one MP.

Socialist MPs indicated that he would likely have the backing of the left in Parliament should he do so.

This despite scepticism over his support for the Iraq War and other New Labour policies and memories of his 2015 leadership bid, when he steered rightwards to be outflanked by Jeremy Corbyn. He is the “only game in town,” one MP told the Star.

Mr Burnham’s manoeuvres, on the eve of Labour Party conference, turn up the heat under Sir Keir who is increasingly regarded as unlikely to survive beyond next May’s local and devolved elections, barring a miraculous turn-around.

Asked if MPs had urged him to run for leader, Mr Burnham told the Telegraph: “People have contacted me throughout the summer.

“I’m not going to say to you that that hasn’t happened, but it’s more a decision for those people than it is for me.”

As to whether he still wanted to be Prime Minister, the Manchester mayor responded: “I stood twice to be leader of the Labour Party. And I think that tells you, doesn’t it?”

In his interviews he called for higher council tax on expensive homes in and around London, scrapping the two-child benefit cap, borrowing to build council homes with higher taxes for the better off with tax cuts for the low paid, as well as challenging the rule of the bond markets.

In words which will be music to many Labour members’ ears, he also pledged to end the “climate of fear” inside the party caused by Downing Street’s authoritarianism, which had created “alienation and demoralisation.” 

An exasperated Number 10 started to fight back with briefings ridiculing Mr Burnham’s plans, but it could find no better public advocate than Southwark MP Neil Coyle, a marginal and discredited rightwinger.

“Instead of working with the Labour government, he looks like he’s part of the sideshow, distractions, that upset a lot of our members,” Mr Coyle opined.

Mr Burnham will be taking his message to Labour conference at fringe events next week, focusing on defeating the threat from the hard-right Reform party, whose migration policies he challenged sharply.

An opinion poll for More in Common suggested that with Mr Burnham in charge, Labour would overhaul Reform, reversing the present situation.

Urging “wholesale change” in the country, Mr Burnham said that “this kind of challenge we’ve got in front of us cannot be met by a very factional and quite divisive running of the Labour Party.” 

With the unexpected disappearance of Angela Rayner from the scene — for now, at least — Mr Burnham has become the repository of hopes for change in government course.

His challenge comes as Sir Keir’s right-hand man Morgan McSweeney is under mounting pressure following disclosures, drawing on the forthcoming book The Fraud by Paul Holden, regarding his failure to declare donations to Starmerite faction Labour Together while he was running it.

The Tories are making hay with the revelations, and if they succeed in adding Mr McSweeney’s scalp to Ms Rayner’s and Lord Mandelson’s, Sir Keir’s position could become all but untenable.

Also going out the Downing Street door was Director of Communications Steph Driver, a veteran of the Labour right who became the third senior media handler to leave in recent months.

To challenge for the succession, Mr Burnham would first have to return to the Commons via a by-election within Greater Manchester. The Blackley and Middleton South seat would fit the bill — incumbent MP Graham Stringer is 75 years old and unwell.

Should the seat become vacant, Mr Burnham’s allies are confident that Labour’s national executive would not be able to block him from standing and that the mayor’s local popularity would secure victory.

The left acknowledges that getting one of their own onto the ballot would be impossible, requiring the backing of 80 MPs.  

The experience of Bell Ribeiro-Addy’s brief run for deputy leader shows that Sir Keir’s rule changes are working as intended.