ANOTHER win for the bond market. Andy Burnham has conceded that, should he be the next prime minister, he would stick within the Treasury’s existing fiscal rules.

This is a U-turn from his previous position, which was that politicians should stand up to the international money markets and be no longer “in hock” to those buying and selling government debt.

He first modified this by arguing that he might seek to fund the huge increases in military spending being imposed by Keir Starmer through some special fund sitting outside the main financial strategy.

Now that too is gone and the Treasury’s rules are firmly back in place. As a reminder, those rules mandate two things.

First, the government’s day-to-day spending must be covered by revenues, with borrowing allowed only for capital investment. Second, debt must be falling as a share of the economy over the life of the parliament.

There are different ways to stay within those rules, but the favoured one over the last 15 years has been austerity — cuts to vital public services and welfare, leaving millions impoverished. The Manchester mayor claims to reject a continuation of that approach.

Another route would be to rein in the eye-watering increases planned in the arms budget. Burnham is far from committing to that.

The best way would be to raise taxes on big business and the wealthy. If that is Burnham’s plan, he should say so.

It is true that Burnham says that Britain has been following the wrong economic model for the last 40 years — the decades of neoliberal hegemony under the Tories, sometimes with Liberal Democrat support, New Labour and Starmer alike.

He is right to do so. Yet breaking with that model will require determined and consistent leadership from Downing Street.

Will Burnham offer it? It is far from certain. The bond market is not the only thing he is wobbly about.

An advocate of reversing Brexit, he now appears to be back-pedalling on the issue, chasing votes as he is in leave-supporting Makerfield. Will he try and drag Britian back into the European Union once he is more focused on winning votes from the Greens and the Liberal Democrats?

Burnham has also called, correctly, for a shift to a form of proportional representation in general elections. Its adoption would likely bar the way to a Nigel Farage premiership.

Now he is saying that he would not seek to make such a change before the general election. But after may be too late.

So it is tempting to say — will the real Andy Burnham please stand up? Yet this may be the real Andy Burnham, a politician whose career indicates no very fixed principles and who, like all in that position, therefore defaults on the status quo.

Unless he things more seriously about how to introduce real change he will flounder in government like all his recent predecessors and his present public popularity will melt away like morning dew.

It is therefore important that the left in Labour take an independent stand. The rules have been rigged to keep a serious socialist off the ballot paper, but it now looks like months before the leadership issue is settled.

That is time enough for the left to make the case for real change on economic policy, arms spending, support for Israel and more. A leadership candidate would have the scope to shift the tone of debate, even if they could not make the final cut.

The Socialist Campaign Group should consider the option carefully. Simply backing Burnham right now looks like buying a pig in a poke.