IT’S mid-morning and the sun was already blazing down on the packed streets of Durham to see the banners and bands march past the County Hotel once more on their way down the river to the old racecourse for a pint and a healthy dose of socialist oratory.

Five years ago Labour MP Andy McDonald, the man who resigned as Sir Keir Starmer’s shadow employment secretary when the future prime minister not only backed away from a £15-an-hour minimum wage and statutory sick pay at the living wage, but asked McDonald to pitch that capitulation to conference.

Now, as Stramer’s career floats by the riverbank, the Middlesbrough and Thornaby East MP is preparing to address the Big Meeting, but not before he spoke to the Star about his hopes for a “reset,” not only in Labour, but in how the country is governed.

“This is a really pivotal moment for the movement and for the country at the same time.

“After 14 years, people were wanting to see change.

“They’ve suffered stagnation, their wages and living conditions have just been suppressed and depressed for far too long, and they’re really expressing themselves that there’s got to be a better way.”

“The Employment Rights Act, Renters Act, and there’s a whole host of things to celebrate, but people just don’t feel it — and that’s fair enough because they wanted more and they want it quicker.

“Added to which, we’ve made some terrible errors,” he said.

“Reaching into the past and thinking that Peter Mandelson is worth the risk was just a catastrophic error.”

Emphatically backing Burnham’s stance on devolution, McDonald said: “There’s some people involved in government who spent their entire career in one street in Whitehall.

“That can’t be right. It’s about breaking out the power, giving that power to people for economic growth in their own nations and regions. So it’s a really good message.”

On dealing with the threat of Reform, McDonald was damning of Stramer’s apparent willingness to be “pulled into some of their narrative” on immigration.

“It won’t work.”

“What people are looking for is an uplift in their living conditions.

“The fact that wages have either stagnated or gone backwards since 2008 is an outrage.

“We need to see restoration of public-sector pay in the first instance getting back to those levels, but it’s broader than just levels of pay.

“It’s about having that control where people are not eking out the dividends and profits from public utilities. We’ve seen obscene extraction. People have had enough.”

Encouraged that “Andy is saying the right things in that direction,” he continued: “We have got to get control of those public utilities again.”

If the new Prime Minister held that line, would he not face the same onslaught — inside and outside of the Labour Party — which Jeremy Corbyn had to contend with?

“That is critically important because, for too long, we’ve had too many people being excluded from the party, being purged, being punished, suspended, all sorts of sanctions.

“And the membership councillors and MPs, of course, suspended, had the whip taken away from them for saying the wrong thing, only for the government to find themselves in the positions of those who lost the whip six months later.

“Andy’s made it abundantly clear that, you know, that culture has to change.

“We’ve got to have a Labour machine that is absolutely in simpatico with the party and the leadership and the policy agenda, not one that simply decides it will do its own thing and pursue its own.

“If we don’t get to grips with that, then I genuinely fear we’ll be back in the same position again very, very soon.”

“We have got to start from the premise that we are a broad church and we’re a pluralistic movement where there are many voices and those voices should not be extinguished.

“We’re healthier and stronger if we take that approach. So I’m up for it. It’s a refresh. It’s a reset.”

With less than three years until a general election, is there time to turn the government around?

“It isn’t long. We must be honest and clear about the battles we’re taking on in the name of the people and take them with us.

“There isn’t that lever to pull that can just magic all that correct in an instant.

“If people are brought along and understand the plan ahead of us and start to see improved living standards … but we can’t be too long with that.

“We’re in this situation because people are rightly angry that that hasn’t been delivered. So it’s a hell of a task ahead of us.

“But I think with somebody who can unite us and articulate it, I think we’ve got a real good chance.”

Would Prime Minister Burnham be joining him on the balcony of the County hotel next year?

“I was hoping he might be here today, but he might be a bit busy.”

“I would say so.”

Time will tell.