My phone rings and a familiar Northern voice comes onto the line: “hello Joel, this is Andy Burnham”. “Hello Mr Burnham,” I reply, reaching for my list of weighty political questions. I take a deep breath to begin but he is in no hurry, eager to chat about Cambridge and insistent that I call him “Andy”. It is only with difficulty that I succeed in turning the conversation towards politics and his current bid for the mayoralty of Greater Manchester.

To ease into things I ask him what he was like as a student. “I wasn’t plotting the route to Westminster, if I’m honest with you,” he chuckles. “I didn’t know what I wanted. I was quite political but I also liked a beer or two and played a lot of football and various other things.”

Fast forwarding twenty years, I want to know why he – a former cabinet member, a former shadow cabinet member, a former Labour leadership contender – has decided to abandon Westminster and contest the Manchester mayoralty? He pauses before replying that, “I think the time has come for quite a big change in the way politics works. I don’t think Westminster is going to fix the quite deep seated alienation some people feel from the political system”.

“I’ve been there 16 years”, he continues. “I’ve seen it at close quarters. The problem with it is it is a highly centralised political system and within that centralised system one perspective on life predominates and that is the London perspective on life. I think the time has come to do something different. I think the arrival of devolution in England is the chance to do something different and to reconnect people with politics and that’s why I am standing.”

"If we just carry on doing what we are doing, politics in our country is not going to get any better anytime soon"

Hang on, I say, you have been an MP since I was five years old, surely this decision to leave wasn’t that clear cut? Burnham concedes “it is a wrench” but he is nonetheless clear that “more of the same isn’t going to provide the answer. The European referendum really laid bare the map of political alienation. If we just carry on doing what we are doing, politics in our country is not going to get any better anytime soon. So the time has come to do something different.”

I cannot help remembering the charge of opportunism, which is often levelled at Burnham; that he is fleeing a doomed Labour Party in Westminster and taking refuge in the North. I ask for his response to these accusations.

“I can see why people would say that,” he replies warily, “but the truth of the matter is that I have run twice for the leadership of the party and I’ve played my part within it”. He is adamant that Westminster politics “is not the only show in town” and that “it is only by breaking away from that kind of mentality that we will actually let some fresh air into politics”.

He is insistent that it will “probably do a greater service for the Labour Party in the longer run by allowing it to get close to people again, reinvent itself at a more local level and then come back stronger in Westminster. I’ve made a judgment about how best I can contribute as somebody who has run twice for the leadership, rather than just hanging around that Westminster scene. I just feel it’s better to take this step in a different direction and by doing so make a bigger contribution to the much needed renewal of the Labour Party”.

He tells me that the Labour Party has historically been too focused upon London and applies this criticism to the last Labour governments. “They definitely suffered from the same bias”, he admits. “I take no pleasure in saying that but it’s true. They did, particularly the Blair government. The Brown government slightly less so but it was very London-centric. Some good things were done in the period but I don’t think we really got to the heart of fundamentally rebalancing the country. I feel the Labour Party itself has been too London-centric and I would level that charge at it under all leaders of recent times.”

The Labour Party must, he says, embrace devolution in order to prosper. “With devolution arriving for the first time in the north of England,” he believes “it would be a major mistake, and a failure to learn from our mistakes of the past, to be sceptical about devolution in England and leave it, if you like, to lesser known figures in the party. That again would create an opportunity for someone again to replace us. So I would say that the lesson is to embrace it and invest in it and that’s what I am doing.”

Although Burnham has been scrupulously loyal to Jeremy Corbyn since 2015 I want to hear his view upon the party’s surprising shift to the left. “Labour was in government for thirteen years,” he tells me, “and I think there is inevitably a sense that by being in government the party is selling out on its values. So you get a pull back”.

“We are in more difficulty in issues around defence and Trident. I don’t think those positions are supported by a majority of the British public”

“Obviously with the election of Jeremy Corbyn more people have joined now who weren’t in the Labour Party in those government years. So yeah in that sense the party has moved to the left, without a doubt. I understand why I lost that leadership election to Jeremy but, at the same time, parties of protest don’t win power so Labour’s got to get the balance right”. He praises some policies, such as the renationalisation of the railways and “ending the privatisation of the NHS,” while acknowledging that “we are in more difficulty in issues around defence and Trident. I don’t think those positions are supported by a majority of the British public”.

I don’t push the point any further. I ask instead about the Conservatives’ “Northern Powerhouse” initiative, which Burnham is very willing to praise. “I have given George Osborne credit for being the first Chancellor who spoke seriously about the North,” he tells me. “The danger, and this is George’s problem all over: is the Northern Powerhouse nothing more than a clever slogan? I think George and David Cameron had a habit of that, of dreaming up quite nice slogans but never actually following through with the detail. But still, let’s give credit where credit’s due, he did talk about it, he has signed what is a pretty substantial devolution deal for Greater Manchester and that holds out the prospect of some serious change in the governance of the country”.

I ask to hear his take on Osborne’s surprise appointment to the editorship of the London Evening Standard. With his tongue very much in his cheek Burnham replies that he “looks forward to the Evening Standard being the major cheerleader of the case for more resources for the North. That’s going to be interesting”.

The future of the left seems to be constantly discussed in Cambridge, at least among my friends. I ask Burnham for his thoughts and he replies, with disarming honesty, that “it’s hard to feel optimistic about it right now and I’m talking about the Left around the world. It has kind of lost its bearings a bit in the aftermath of the global financial crash and the rise of the populist right. It hasn’t yet articulated a convincing response to all of that so I don’t necessarily feel optimistic but this is a moment of change so I am confident that there will be a resurgence and it will likely be led by your generation. My appeal to the readers of Varsity would be don’t feel moribund, feel, this is the moment to rebuild”.

Labour must embrace a second Brexit referendum

I have a sensitive question for him about his somewhat controversial stance on LGBTQ+ issues. In 2015, in particular, a New Statesman article by Benjamin Butterworth argued that Burnham had “serious questions to answer” over his voting record on LGBTQ+ issues.

For the first time a slightly pained tone enters Burnham’s voice and he tells me that he “did feel that was very unfair. If you look back at the 2010 leadership election I was the first front bench Labour politician, I also think national politician, to call for gay marriage. Gordon Brown had ruled it out in about 2007 or 2008 and in my leadership manifesto for that election I was the first one to propose it. I’m quite clear that full equality is central to my pitch, it always has been and it always will be. And if I am elected mayor I will be a mayor for all people and all communities of Greater Manchester.”

I finish by asking him what a young Andy Burnham would do, were he leaving university now. Chuckling, he responds that “if anybody would describe themselves as a young Andy Burham, I doubt it, but if they did I would say to them come home and help me build up devolution. That’s what my appeal to them would be: to those souls around Cambridge I would say ‘let’s go and make some real change at a more local level and build back from there’”