Poor Andy from Manchester just wants to help. How could anyone think there's more to it?

How do you solve a problem like Andy? Schrödinger’s very own guest feline at Labour’s conference. A man who is both there and not there.

- John Crace

Not invited on the main stage, but the star attraction at countless fringe events. The man who is making a leadership bid and not making a leadership bid. Burnham is the man who likes to have it every which way.

You also have to ask yourself why these things keep happening to Andy. It just doesn’t seem fair somehow. There he was just giving a front-page interview to the Daily Telegraph on the eve of the conference about how the government was lacking leadership and needed a change of direction, and somehow people just jumped to the conclusion that he was putting himself in the frame to be the next prime minister.

And there he was talking to various broadcasters about how various Labour MPs had been begging him to quit as mayor of Greater Manchester and return to Westminster as leader-in-waiting. And still people were talking behind his back, saying the guy has designs on Keir’s job. Just how much more unlucky can Andy get?