The first thing Andy Burnham ever said to me means I'm still convinced a snap election is coming

"That's not a very good question," a veteran broadsheet journalist quipped when I got the chance to speak to Andy Burnham.

It was September 23, 2024, raining cats and dogs, while I was then just 25 years old and attending my first Labour Party Conference in Liverpool.

The then-Mayor of Greater Manchester was all smiles after managing to get a gaggle of journalists to make the march from the ACC Arena to the Museum of Liverpool.

The niceties, which were undeniably heightened when I revealed I studied at university alongside Mr Burnham's son, somewhat ended when he was asked about his leadership ambitions, but he knew how to play the question.

"I am committed to my third term, absolutely," the King of the North told GB News.

"I'm not planning to head back to Westminster any time soon."

At the time, Labour was still around five points ahead just weeks after its landslide victory, though a damning poll had put Sir Keir Starmer's personal approval rating at minus 26 per cent.

I remember running back through the pouring rain, ranting down the phone to my editor about the broadsheet journalist rather than heading to the bookies to bet on Mr Burnham entering No10 just 22 months later.

But nearly two years later, that exchange looks rather more interesting.

"All of this speculation on an early election – I can knock that dead," Mr Burnham said just days before the 2026 Labour Party Conference.

But the Prime Minister has held more positions on Brexit than Everton have had managers, flip-flopped on being tougher on migration, and even made a spectacular U-turn on Manchester's own Ulez-style Clean Air Zone.

Politicians, including our most successful, can, of course, change their minds.

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Winston Churchill crossed the floor twice, while Margaret Thatcher went from donning a continental jumper in 1975 to railing against Brussels little over a decade later.

But there is one thing Mr Burnham has never really changed his mind about: becoming Prime Minister.

He rose under both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, lost leadership contests to Ed Miliband in 2010 and Jeremy Corbyn in 2015, then reinvented himself as the self-styled King of the North, winning 63 per cent of the vote in 2024.

It wasn't quite a North Korean-style mandate, but it was pretty close by British standards.

As the old Labour joke goes: "A Blairite, a Brownite, and a Corbynite walk into a bar. The barman says, 'What will you have, Andy?'"

That may look like political flexibility, but it may also look like a man who understood, as Boris Johnson did, that you never quite know which way the ball will come out of the back of the scrum.

Having told me he was not returning to Westminster any time soon, Mr Burnham left the mayoralty just two years into his third term and seized the opportunity when it presented itself.

The conventional wisdom is that he would not call an early election.

Why would he? Labour still has a huge majority, there's plenty of time left to run and, on the evidence of the polls, no obvious electoral dividend to harvest.

But think about it another way.

Mr Burnham does not need to believe Labour is certain to win an election in 2027. He only needs to believe that the political weather may be better now than it is likely to be later.

Polling guru Sir John Curtice has also poured cold water on the so-called "Burnham bounce", warning Labour could lose its majority by going to the country too soon.

As one former Cabinet Minister put it to GB News: "You don't go to the polls when you're going to go backwards."

The Prime Minister has just suffered his worst day for small boat crossings – with 781 arrivals suggesting Labour's talk of success in the Channel is somewhat premature.

The OECD has downgraded Britain's growth forecasts, and the Budget is expected to clobber hard-working Britons.

If Mr Burnham waits, like conventional wisdom would implore him to, there is no guarantee that things can only get better.

In fact, there's every chance it could get much worse by 2029.

Mr Burnham knows the ball can come loose from the back of the scrum or, in football terms, for our Toffee-loving Prime Minister, that you have to be first to the second ball.

And the picture is moving. Labour has enjoyed a modest bounce, but Reform UK is struggling, and the Right remains divided.

If that soaking morning in Liverpool taught me anything, it is that what a politician says today does not tell you what they will do tomorrow.

Mr Burnham might appear to be learning a lesson from Gordon Brown about not going to the polls early, but don't be surprised if he takes a risk out of the Tory playbook.

Theresa May repeatedly ruled out a snap election after replacing David Cameron in 2016.

"I’ve been very clear that I think we need that period of time, that stability, to be able to deal with the issues that the country is facing and have that election in 2020," she said at the time.

And people close to Mr Burnham still argue that, if an opportunity presents itself, he should take it.

Holding on until 2029 gives Mr Burnham an extra 20 months or so in power, but going early would likely hand the King of the North another full term, albeit one propped up by an anti-Brexit rainbow coalition.

But Brown's 2007 agonising and Theresa May's 2017 gamble offer the same warning from opposite directions: things really might not get any better.

A recent visit to Everton's Hill Dickinson Stadium with Mark Carney might have been more helpful than people think.

When Justin Trudeau announced his resignation in January 2025, Mr Carney had no experience of elected office and the Liberals were heading for a heavy defeat.

But he won the leadership, took on Canadian Conservative Pierre Poilievre and became Prime Minister, although the Liberals fell short of a majority.

That does not mean Mr Burnham should copy Mr Carney.

But perhaps, as a fellow Evertonian, he will appreciate the lesson: sometimes you don't get to choose when the ball comes to you.

Nobody knows what Mr Burnham and Mr Carney discussed at Everton's new home, less than two miles from where I first met the man who told me he was not going back to Westminster any time soon.

Perhaps it was just football. Perhaps there was time for some advice on politics.

If my first conversation with Mr Burnham is anything to go by, we may only find out later.

Either way, I still wouldn't bet against an early election in 2027 just yet.