Chris Mason: What his first week in power tells us about Andy Burnham

Image source, Reuters By Chris Mason Political editor Published 39 minutes ago "We are on borrowed time if we don't get a move on," Angela Rayner, the former deputy prime minister who is back in the cabinet this week as housing secretary, told the BBC's Today programme on Friday. It has been quite the week at Westminster. Sir Keir Starmer's departure as prime minister on Monday seems rather a while ago. The fledgling Burnham administration has been seeking to find its feet and make a decent first impression at the same time, as many try to do in the first days in a job. There has been an early pattern in these early days: an early morning nugget of news dropping from No10. On Thursday, it was business rates in England ; on Wednesday, it was bus fares in England and on Tuesday, it was a VAT cut on electricity bills . Today, the prime minister is assembling what Rayner calls "a pride of mayors" among others for a meeting of what is known as the National Economic Council at the new No10 North in Manchester. Andy Burnham claims his new base in Manchester represents the beginning of " the biggest rebalancing of power our country has seen , external " and he will be "bringing forward the biggest changes in the last 40 years". His early announcements have been considerably more piecemeal than that – he says his "10 year plan for Britain" will come later in the year. It is worth remembering there was talk from both Boris Johnson and his allies and from Sir Keir Starmer about their plans for the decade ahead – both fizzled out rather more quickly than that. So how should we assess how much politics has changed, or not? The early evidence - and let's be frank, it is only that given we are just a few days in - points to Andy Burnham being both more sharp and more nimble than his predecessor in setting out what he is attempting to do and trying to point to early examples of what that might look like, with the announcements of the last few days. With the tinkering of how the government is run, like the creation of the Office of Prime Minister, and the establishment of No 10 North, he's made it clear that power very much flows through him. On Friday, he said, about being at No 10 North alongside his chancellor, John Healey, First Secretary of State Lou Haigh and Cabinet Secretary Antonia Romeo that it was sending a "powerful message" to everyone that the "political commitment is there". Image source, PA Media Image caption, Louise Haigh arrives at No 10 North in central Manchester, ahead of a meeting with many of the cabinet and Burnham Burnham's opponents are having to recalibrate and work through how they take on a new prime minister. The Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch's al fresco speech and news conference on a rooftop in central London on Thursday was a tacit acknowledgement that the political terms of trade have changed. She teased the new prime minister over his informal style – he "seems like a nice guy…I'm glad he's got a sense of humour," s