Politically Speaking column with Jon Trickett MP: What is needed is change for the better in people's lives

Burnham did not win Makerfield by offering more of the same. Faith in Westminster politics had worn thin in the seat and across the country. His pitch was deliberately different. He promised new flood infrastructure, a link road, action on the toxic waste, new health facilities, a pharmacy, a GP surgery and to save the library. These were not abstract promises about "growth" or "opportunity", but concrete commitments about places, services and the essentials of working-class life in one Northern town.

His vision did more than that: it projected a different kind of politics onto the whole country. This was reinforced by the rhetoric around Burnham's leader’s speech at the Labour Party Conference. But voters are not fools. They know the difference between political talk about them and a government that does things with them.

The first weeks in office matter, and we have seen measures aimed squarely at household finances, such as abolishing VAT on domestic electricity bills and the planned £2 bus fare cap in England outside London. There were also strong pledges to end rough sleeping in England, and funding for housing, healthcare and addiction support.

For too long, working people were told there were no alternatives: bills must rise, public services must contract, councils must manage decline and communities must adapt. Politics at its best is not a spreadsheet exercise, or a communications grid written in Whitehall's lofty offices. It is a core argument about who the economy is for.

Burnham's great advantage is that he is instantly likeable, and his promise that governments can intervene and make a difference is correct. But there is a sting in the tail. Promises create expectations, and not only in Makerfield. Deference to politicians was jettisoned long ago, and undelivered expectations are now politically dangerous.

Take the water industry. Burnham talked initially about public ownership, but we now hear more about public control. There was expansive language about council housing, but now the talk is of social housing.

There is a world of difference between telling a privatised utility to behave itself and changing who ultimately owns it. And there is a chasm of accountability between social housing run by private landlords and council housing run by elected councils, where tenants can hold someone to account at election time and in councillors' surgeries in between.

The country is profoundly damaged by austerity and voters are hungry for change. If Labour fails to deliver, the far right is waiting in the wings, awash with crypto billionaires' money and an appetite for power, which it would use to inflict major damage on our fragile democracy. Any small slip by the new team will be pounced upon.

Burnham said Britain spent decades transferring power and wealth upwards, and that we had suffered decades of neoliberalism. He proposed a new model: stronger public services, empowered regions, public ownership and an economy built around working people. But serious ambitions require meaningful delivery.

Promises made in Makerfield can be a measuring stick. Did all of Britain's Makerfields get the health facilities they need? Did the libraries survive? Did the roads and flood defences materialise? And did real control over our lives pass to our communities?

The danger for Burnham is that his language of transformation becomes another Westminster word game. The country doesn't want a slightly more sympathetic version of managerial Labour. He proposed change, and the voters responded.

The stakes are high. Now he occupies the buildings from which the government makes the rules, and people in Makerfield, Wakefield and beyond are entitled to ask when those promises become reality. Better speeches help, but what is needed is change for the better in people's lives.