Andy Burnham’s campaign launch? Thumbs-ups, swaggering tummy, Cool-Daddio dress code, plus hugs for Labour MPs, football banter and self-basting cries of ‘brilliant, mate!’

It is eerie how similar Our Next Prime Minister sounds to Paul Whitehouse’s comedy-sketch character, The Brilliant Kid – a geeky Northern lad who spoons about the place with loping gait, marvelling at the most obvious things.

Mr Burnham had summoned some 30 supporters to the car park of the Stubshaw Cross community club, Wigan, for the launch of his Keir Starmer decapitation campaign. This is otherwise known as the Makerfield by-election, which Labour has provoked to rid us of the Prime Minister.

‘Vote Andy For Us’ it said on a poster-van parked behind him. Hand-held placards repeated this message along with a computer-graphics-style caricature of Mr Burnham, possibly less jowly than the real thing.

‘Hope is in the air!’ shouted Mr Burnham as he loped towards a bank of microphones. ‘Can yer feel it?’ This elicited a chorus of warbling affirmation. It was the hope of being shot of the nasal knight, the hot new cause for a Labour movement that until recently insisted Sir Keir was a high-minded statesman who would govern us for a serene decade.

Now they openly scorn the PM as a doofus of the first water. One day they may turn on Mr Burnham in the same manner. Politics is like that.

Change, change, change: Brilliant Kid Andy, supremely cocky, hair brushed forward into a bit of a Caesar, must have said it a dozen times in the five or so minutes of this extempore speech. ‘This is a change by-election,’ he averred. Translation: get rid of Starmer. ‘This is a clarion call for change,’ he continued. ‘We need change to the economy.’ That sounded ominous for Rachel Reeves.

Westminster was much attacked. Westminster had neglected Makerfield. Westminster needed shaking up. Wicked, nasty Westminster. ‘We need to bring that change to Westminster!’ quoth our Andy, with such force that his eyeballs popped out from under those beautifully vaselined brows.

The innocent bystander would not have suspected that this assiduously scruffy chap attacking 40 years of political failure was himself a Privy Councillor, a longstanding Labour grandee who was a Westminster aide from 1997, served as an MP for 16 years, was a minister under Tony Blair and sat in Gordon Brown’s Cabinet. He is the ultimate machine politician. Yet he attacks the Establishment.

Westminster was amply represented in the crowd. Among those cheering Mr Burnham were the Government Chief Whip Jonathan Reynolds (he’s the one who nearly had a fight with a dissident Left-wing MP after PMQs on Wednesday) and his deputy Mark ‘Smarmy’ Tami. These two magnificoes of the Westminster system did not quite say ‘please don’t sack us when you become PM’ but it will have been understood.

Also attending, uniformly in mufti, were Labour MPs Barry Gardiner, Chris Webb, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Kim Johnson and a couple of others. I think I spotted James Frith, who became a science minister when Josh Simons had to be dumped after smearing journalists. Mr Simons then vacated the Makerfield seat for Mr Burnham and is now likely to be given a £100k job in Mr Burnham’s No10 operation. What a cosy world it is.

But fie on such scepticism! Mr Burnham promised to change everything. He enthused about nationalising buses and trains. He was thrilled to discuss river gauges in Makerfield. He told a childhood story about taking a Makerfield coach to London to watch Everton. ‘I live here!’ bellowed the man who clearly expects to soon reside at the SW1A 2AA postal code. ‘I love this place. I love the people of this place.’

The gamble being taken by Labour and its careerists is that Ashton-in-Makerfield reciprocates that professed affection. We must hope they are right. Because it would be frightfully awkward – really terribly sticky – if it all went wrong and Makerfield voted for the plumber rather than the lifelong politico.