Verdict on Andy Burnham’s first PMQs in the Commons? Gluey. Glacial. He has the dropping consistency of plum-cake batter. Despite those eyelashes, our new premier comes across as an earnest bore.
We will start with the good news. He avoided the common debutant’s mistake of jabbering. Instead he spoke too slowly. A despatch-box dawdler. Exchanges with Kemi Badenoch lasted 18 minutes, almost twice as long as they should have taken. The supposed half-hour session stretched to 44 minutes.
Answers were leisurely and largely inconclusive. He had little to say and took an age to say it.
This was his first Wednesday high noon:
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