The King of the North has claimed the crown... now he must prove he can wear it, writes Andrew Marr

Britain gets a new Prime Minister on Monday. Stay with the LBC app for full live coverage as Andy Burnham takes the keys to Downing Street.

Being prime minister is a hellishly difficult task. One of the first qualities is to have the zest, the oomph, the relish and gusto for it. In this, from what we have seen so far, Andy Burnham is well suited to the job, as I am afraid Keir Starmer, who rarely seemed to genuinely enjoy it, was not.

What we must all hope is that he has enough steel in him to take difficult, unpopular but necessary decisions. With well over a million young people outside education, the workplace or training, a lost generation, reform of welfare is essential.

The numbers and the cost also mean that breaking the triple lock is going to be essential – not something that can be done without a general election, but it should be planned for and announced before.

Then there is defence spending, not a popular cause on the labour Left but, given the international peril we face, now essential. Where does the money come from? I mention these because, quite clearly, Andy Burnham’s heart is on the left.

When he became Labour leader on Friday, his speech told those listening, including the former Labour leader Neil Kinnock, “I am one of you.” He aspires to replace the Starmer years with “real Labour.” We still don’t know exactly what this means.

Burnham’s attack on “neoliberalism”, politics governed by big money and the belief that tax-cutting and deregulation are essential to growth, even if the public realm must be hacked back to make space, targeted Thatcherism and the Cameron-Osborne austerity years. But it was also aimed, less explicitly, at Tony Blair.

When Burnham says that his generation of politicians, including himself, failed people, he means that “New Labour”, with its emphasis on metropolitan culture, the introduction of private provision into state services, and a celebration of immigration, also let down working-class voters such as those in Makerfield.

Blair didn’t hold back in response, publishing a lengthy essay in May which attacked Labour’s “almost infinite capacity for self delusion.” The party’s most successful recent leader called for a return to radical centrism, without which it would be “playing with fire”.

Burnham has also already been criticised by the left: Jeremy Corbyn was on LBC recently attacking him for not having a radical enough plan on poverty, or for being nearly tough enough on Israel.

So, although this new Prime Minister, yet another one, is enjoying his moment of maximum personal power, he will be under pressure from both wings of the party at a time when the economy is still anaemic and the public finances are very fragile.

What will be his way through? First, the differences between his left and right are not quite as big as both sides make out: Blair wanted more drilling for oil and gas, and Burnham appears ready to do this, while avoiding breaking manifesto commitments on new licenses. Burnham is committed to stronger borders. He understands the need for welfare reform.

Meanwhile, looking to his left, he has already apologised for the Labour Party’s previous approach on Gaza. And his, so far anyway, promises to help with the cost of living will focus on lower-income voters first.

But, second, he intends to partly sidestep the familiar criticism by doing things very differently. We are going to see a different shape of government, with housing and devolution run from Manchester, not London; a new, in effect, “department for the future economy“ with the first cabinet minister mainly devoted to AI anywhere in the west – something that should please Blair – and a greatly strengthened Number 10, to drive through change.

Will it work? That's anybody’s guess. Recent history shows a series of flailing prime ministers making different mistakes as they try to learn from one another, and the country declines. The job ahead for Mr Burnham is awesomely big.

But I’m a natural optimist. It’s my personal weakness. So at the back of my mind I’m playing Chumbawumba (not necessarily a popular Labour choice: they doused the late John Prescott with cold water in a union protest). We get knocked down. But we get up again…

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Andrew Marr is an author, journalist and presenter for LBC.

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