Andy Burnham had barely got his feet under his No10 desk when he telephoned Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates.
According to the official record of their conversation, the Prime Minister, just days into his new job, ‘began by thanking His Highness for his country’s investment into Manchester and the incredible impact it has had on the city’.
Yet knowing the obliging former Manchester mayor as we do, it is possible to imagine he was more effusive in his gratitude than Downing Street’s pedestrian account of the call suggests.
After all it was the Emirati ruler’s brother, Sheikh
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