"Do you want a chat about the saviour?" a long-time Labour contact joked when I asked to pick their brains about their old colleague Andy Burnham, who is poised to enter No 10 in less than a month.

It certainly is time to talk about the Greater Manchester mayor. Only 10 days ago, he pulled off an impressive victory, in what one former minister described as a "Russian roulette" by-election in Makerfield, beating Reform and defying Labour's lack of popularity.

But can he pull off the far bigger task ahead, and really be the "saviour" that Labour craves?

Labour MPs desperately want Burnham's project to work. You could see how they crammed into Westminster Hall to surround him for a giant photo on his first day back in Parliament.

One MP says Parliament has had a "strange atmosphere all week, with people crawling over each other to try to get to him".

Another member of the government said "ministers are sweating their connections to try to get an audience".

It's not just about red boxes and posteriors on the seats of government cars. We've seen Labour MPs gulping down the Burnham Kool-Aid this week, turning eager hope into belief that, as prime minister, he can face down Nigel Farage, help Labour keep its seats, and preserve at least a decent chunk of its epic 2024 majority at the next election.

The simple reason for this hope? He's a popular politician at a time when most politicians are not. That's not to say that every single member of the public is going to be enamoured. Another colleague from Burnham's first time round at Westminster says: "He'll have to go from cock of the north to national champion".

The "north", of course, is also not just Manchester.

Another contact told me: "He needs to drop this man of the north a bit – he'll hack off people. It's deeply upsetting to people from Leeds and Newcastle to think that Manchester is THE north, let alone Scotland. It's trite."

But Burnham has a rare ability to grab public attention and make voters feel heard – often literally.

An ally from his time in Manchester told me: "It used to drive me mad that he was late, but every conversation is important to him. I could be stuck waiting having to make small talk with an ambassador, because he was stuck outside having a conversation with someone about the buses".

In a profession where politicians are only too happy to be rude about each other, Andy Burnham is very well liked.

"Affable", "warm", and a close ally says he's a "really nice person – politics is a contact sport and it's not contrived".

One MP calls him a "good bloke", adding that "sound would be the Manchester word". They describe his "social dexterity": an ability to communicate with colleagues and the public in real life and on social media.

But there is a niggling question among many of his colleagues and, in fact, expressed neatly on his Facebook page, where a member of the public wrote: "I have no doubt I'd enjoy a beer with you and we could talk about Joy Division and other important cultural things. But when did that become the thing that determined whether someone becomes the prime minister or not?"

There are nerves in Labour circles about what Burnham would actually do with power. One old friend of his told me: "Andy has huge skills but there have been questions about the extent to which [his] thinking on some of the really tricky stuff has been properly developed".

Another wondered: "Can he shake off the perception that he is a bit of a lightweight?"

Not everyone is convinced he is up to it.

One senior party figure told me: "The eyelashes will deliver for a day, maybe a week. But the scrutiny is brutal. Won't last three months, never mind three years."

Ouch.

Multiple sources believe Burnham appointing his old flatmate and fellow cabinet minister from the New Labour days, James Purnell, as chief of staff is a positive sign. Not just because of Purnell's experience, but also because it has inevitably raised hackles on the left (Purnell has recently worked with big business and is perceived as a Blairite).

The choice was cited to me as evidence that Burnham was willing to make decisions that would upset people. This has been reassuring to some in the party. A prime minister's job is to make choices bound to infuriate one group or another and frankly, there is concern that Burnham might find that hard.

One government source told me: "The thing is he loves to be loved and likes to be liked. He has to be ready to be unpopular – and he will have to face the trade-offs – mayors don't face trade-offs".

One of his old colleagues says: "He is quite emotional, he has feelings." They question "how you balance that with the need for tough skin, the need to see things through and to take very exposed positions".

But you don't spend more than two decades in politics worrying only about pleasing people. Burnham gladly irritated the Labour leadership on a regular basis when Keir Starmer was in charge.

And one ally who worked closely with him in government in the late noughties said his talent was not just being nice: "He never takes no for an answer".

They recall battles between the government and "hostile permanent secretaries" towards the end of Labour's time in power, who they say were "hoarding money for the incoming Tory government".

"He went to war with them and won," Burnham's ally recalls. "It was astonishing".

Some of the doubt stems from a perceived lack of clarity over what Burnham wants to do, beyond get into No 10. And we know he really wants to do that.

This will be third time lucky after running for the leadership and failing in 2010 and 2015. We're used to hearing his rhetoric about change, about making the country more equal, about looking after communities that have been left behind like Makerfield, his new constituency. "Vote Andy - For Us'" goes the tagline.

But when it comes to specifics, it can feel like a bit of a blur.

That's why there is a hot political frenzy around who'll be his chancellor. All the talk in Westminster is of whether he'll pick Ed Miliband, on the soft left, or Wes Streeting, from Labour's right, or Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood. Whoever he picks in the end (and perhaps it will be someone else altogether like Welfare Secretary Pat McFadden, less eager to see himself in a political story), the argument has become a proxy for Burnham's overall sense of direction.

The lack of clarity is a cause of concern for some in the party. One source told me: "Is the political north star still missing? The contenders talked about are in entirely different places on all sorts of things".

We'll see. Burnham is expected to make a speech about the economy on Monday, when perhaps there'll be more of a hint. But many sources say his time as Manchester mayor has changed him and that he has incredible confidence and conviction about what he wants to do. One close colleague says: "He thinks about things more deeply than people give him credit for - don't underesminate how much he has thought about it".

If you look, there is actually a lot of evidence out there about what he would like to do. He talks often about his track record in Manchester: the public bus network, the MBacc qualification, the partnership with business that's helped Manchester's economy grow.

He's also been plain that he has unfinished business on trying to sort out social care in England. As health secretary, his efforts to get the parties to work together to reform it were dashed by the reality of politics in the run-up to the 2010 general election. It's highly likely that, in office, he'll want to go back and try again somehow.

Burnham even wrote a book about his vision with his friend, Liverpool Mayor Steve Rotherham. They make a passionate argument about how unequal the country has become. And they came up with a 10-point plan that would be radical by any measure if it was followed through.

They'd pass a "basic law" that would give every part of the country equal funding based on need.

There'd be a written constitution, a move to proportional representation and they'd scrap the rules that force MPs to vote for their party, the "whip". They'd give much more power to mayors and councils under devolution.

The book argues that technical and university education should be treated equally. There's a plan for a legal right to the basics (starting with housing), a "Grenfell law", as well as the Hillsborough Law, which would force public officials to tell the full truth. And they argue for bringing back industry to the north to provide jobs and to aid Net Zero.

Before some of you hyperventilate, that huge agenda is not what Andy Burnham is likely to argue for on day one. The book is a call for long-term reform over a period of many years, and it makes clear where Burnham is coming from.

But there are gaps in knowledge over the specifics. Will he find the extra £10 billion the Ministry of Defence believes is needed to keep us safe? Will he continue with the government's social media ban for under-16s in the format announced last week? Will he try again to tighten up the rules on benefits to cut the ballooning welfare budget? Will he abandon the new rules on immigration that the home secretary is trying to bring in?

And what we really don't know much about is how he will approach foreign affairs. It's hard to imagine he'd stray much from the existing government positions on war and peace, but how would he deal with Donald Trump?

He's expected to take over at a time of huge international turmoil, with big challenges for every government going: demographics, debt, division, and a real sense in the country of disillusionment with our political system.

One of those old former colleagues reckons: "There is no escaping there are some bloody awful issues to deal with. He is going to have to make very tough decisions which are going to be really unpopular – you can't govern on vibes."

Then there is the real test for any prime minister - how would Burnham respond to our old friend "events"?

Leaders' successes or failures are rarely based on the perfect plans they often clutch to their bosom on the day they walk into No 10. What tends to be more important is the question of how they react to events totally beyond their control, or how they correct mistakes when their backs are up against the wall.

"He's more steely than people think," one ally says.

You don't spend 30 years in British politics if you can't pick yourself up when things go wrong. Burnham has run for the leadership once and failed. He ran again in 2015, for the second time, and lost again. Burnham tried to run in Gorton and Denton, and failed. Then he took the massive gamble of running in Makerfield and won - and now is on his way into No 10.

After the horror of the last few months, when Keir Starmer's rivals were slowly trying to force him out, this week there's been hope in the voices of Labour MPs and insiders. There are those who worry about Burnham's ability, with even one of his own colleagues telling me: "I just really wonder if he's up to it".

But after all the angst and anger of 2026, a member of Starmer's circle told me: "We have to pull our socks up, get behind him and on we go".

An MP shouted when Burnham was being sworn into Parliament this week: "He's not the Messiah".

But after two overly miserable years, Andy Burnham's talent and long-burning ambition give him a chance at No 10 and offer Labour a chance to resurrect themselves.

The "saviour" might be pushing it, but the mood in the party this week suggests he is the best chance they've got.