He is arguably a less inspiring speaker and indeed personality than Starmer. Swapping these two to please the unions together with a minority of left wing MPs could prove a massive blunder and result in a Reform government. There are many who think Burnham is primarily in the business of self-promotion and his pitch about reversing 40 years of Labour policy completely bogus.
That's not what we hear on the doorstep. People are scathing about Keir Starmer, some beside themselves with absolute fury. Only the loathing people had for Jeremy Corbyn comes close. But when you ask why, the vast majority don't seem to know beyond "he's a liar" or cold weather payments.
This is driven day after day by the media and particularly the right-wing media. A female Reform voter from Makerfield was asked on Radio 4 yesterday about Farage's £5 million donation. She immediately started talking about Starmer's free glasses, asking is he any better.
Is Starmer worse than Boris Johnson, Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak? Hardly, but the constant drip of negativity from the Mail and the Telegraph, amongst others, right-wing publicity-hungry agitators like Farage, Robinson and Fox and the social media hellscape deliver this vitriol directly into people's houses day in, day out.
Andy Burnham, on the other hand, is generally well-received and lauded by a large number of people on the doorstep and would be likely to win most by-elections.
Burnham v Robert Kenyon is surely the biggest mismatch in political history but there are still a lot of people willing the latter on, largely for their own nefarious reasons.