So the question now, it would appear to be, is exactly when will Andy Burnham become the next leader of the Labour Party and the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom? Shortly after July 16 seems to be the likeliest scenario, at which point the former Mayor of Greater Manchester may only have been an MP (this time around) for less than a month.

This is a piece about finance, not politics, even if in this case the two are inevitably intertwined. Burnham has long been big on the importance of bringing public utility companies, such as water, back into public control. He has yet to explain how this would be paid for. Earlier this month, he proclaimed his support for the so-called ‘Waspi Women’ , who say they are collectively owed around £10 billion because of changes previously made to the age-eligibility terms regarding the state pension. After a backlash among Labour MPs, he retracted this. But then altering his position has been a Burnham trademark. He supported a man’s right to self-identify as a woman until he didn’t; he argued for all legal migrants to have instant access to benefits until he changed his mind. Some of his shifts significantly involve finance, some don’t.

Maybe most fundamental of all might be his attitude to the welfare bill. Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, chastised fellow-Labour MPs for always asking one question: “Who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others?” He opined they were asking the wrong question. (Like they thought that getting people on to benefits, rather than off them, should be the plan.) But it’s an attitude that perhaps helps to explain why the UK’s debt level is estimated now to be over 94% of the country’s GDP. According to the Office for National Statistics, 53% of British households receive more in benefits than they pay in tax. Burnham has acknowledged change needs to happen but adds “it’s how you do it” that matters.

In fact, the situation is worse than the above suggests. A recent review by Alan Milburn (his photo is on the home page), a former Labour government minister, found that of every £25 spent on welfare for young people, only £1 is spent on helping them find work. The term ‘Neets’ stands for ‘young people not in education, employment or training’. If the UK level of Neets was the European average, it would save the nation an estimated £20 billion. As Fraser Nelson wrote in The Times: “If we managed to get overall sickness benefit levels back where they were pre-lockdown, we’d have the fastest economic growth in the G7 – and all the money we need for defence and tax cuts.” Which in theory is potentially encouraging even if the present reality is far from that: the way we’re going could lead to generations of families never having known what work is.

In September last year, Burnham commented that the country needed to “get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets”. Given that bond traders are the ones who would be lending the money which the country (desperately) needs, this was not a smart move. Interest rates duly went up. Burnham duly backtracked. If he cannot find policies that stimulate growth and reduce dependence on the state, the man who will soon become our seventh PM in 10 years may find himself making way for the eighth in maybe 12.