Will Andy Burnham be a 'legitimate' prime minister?

Social media has made experts of us all.

Remember when Covid arrived, we were all suddenly expert epidemiologists, lecturing each other – but more importantly, the government – about how best to deal with the pandemic, not to mention offering sage advice (geddit?) on the vaccine rollout?

Brexit was another, earlier example of online expertise. Suddenly we were all familiar with what a customs union was, the qualities of the single market, what the World Trade Organisation actually was, the peculiar economic impacts of tariffs and what the exact consequences of a “no deal” Brexit would actually mean.

And now we’re all constitutional experts, weighing in, often with unjustified confidence, to the tempestuous debate about whether Andy Burnham will have any “legitimacy” when, next month, he becomes Britain’s seventh prime minister in a decade.

The problem we are told, is that Keir Starmer (look him up) had a mandate to be prime minister for the duration of the 2024 parliament, and that any replacement would lack that vital legitimacy as national leader that only a general election victory can give you.

So please allow me to play the part of the armchair constitutional expert. I have the advantage of being right.