When Andy Burnham unsuccessfully ran for the Labour leadership in 2015 perhaps the most notable thing about his campaign was its northernness.The then Leigh MP, once a minister under Gordon Brown, raised eyebrows - and laughs - when, in a Mumsnet Q&A, he told readers asking about his favourite biscuit that he liked 'beer and chips and gravy'.He was heavily beaten by Jeremy Corbyn but has continued to bang the northern drum through nine years as mayor of Greater Manchester.And there are already signs that the Makerfield by-election campaign by the man dubbed 'the King of the North' will follow the same well-trodden path.Before the writ has even been moved and before he has been chosen as the Labour candidate, allies stepped up to point out his solid local pedigree.Josh Simons, the MP standing down in the Wigan seat to facilitate Burnham's return to Westminster, pointed out to followers on social media that the Greater Manchester mayor did a TV interview yesterday while holding his lunch of a butter pie, a £2.75 local delicacy filled with potatoes and onions.He had preceded that with a post quoting an anonymous would-be Reform voter saying they would back Burnham because they wanted 'someone like me, from a working class background and from the North was leading our country'.Meanwhile Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy went even further on a tour of TV and radio studios today. Asked if Mr Burnham, whose economic views spooked markets this week, was right or leftwing, she told Times Radio: 'I'd say north actually.' With photographers camped outside his home Mr Burnham decided to go running in a retro Everton football shirt, celebrating his support for a team that has not won anything in more than 30 years Asked if Mr Burnham, whose economic views spooked markets this week, was right or leftwing, Culture secretary Lisa Nandy said: 'I'd say north actually.'She went on: 'Both of us have wanted to move politics north for quite some time and by that I mean actually that there are too many parts of the country that just have been disrespected for too long our contribution hasn't been seen and the issues that we've got the chronic under investment and a lack of confidence in us has been felt for a long time.'She made the remarks on a media round in which she was firmly rooting for Mr Burnham. The man himself used an interview with the Mirror today to highlight his work in the north, saying his career 'has been all about fighting for people in these parts'.'I did it when I was the MP for Leigh fighting for compensation for miners that was delivered by the last Labour government, fighting for investment in the Wigan borough, fighting for justice for the Hillsborough families for those affected by infected blood,' he said.'I've played a significant role in fighting against Boris Johnson during Covid when he tried to treat the people of Makerfield and Greater Manchester as second-class citizens, fighting against that mentality actually of people in Whitehall and Westminster that thinks they can treat the Midlands and the North of England, somehow as second-class citizens.'With photographers camped outside his home last week he decided to go running in a retro Everton football shirt, celebrating his support for a team that has not won anything in more than 30 years. Mr Burnham, may have been born in Liverpool and raised near Warrington, but he went on to study English at Cambridge and then spent his pre-MP career working for the Labour Party in London and for various public sector bodies.He then became MP for Leigh, holding the Greater Manchester seat for 16 years, many of which were spent as a minister or shadow minister.He has spent the past nine years as mayor of Greater Manchester.Also out on the BBC was Mr Simons, a former Starmer minister who has thrown his weight behind Mr Burnham to the point of being willing to quit Parliament after two years.In a social media post last night he shared what he said was a post from a would-be Reform-voting constituent who said: 'I've spent my whole adult life wishing that someone like me, from a working class background and from the North was leading our country. 'All I've seen in my lifetime is public school boys telling me how things are and to be honest, coming from a family of little to no wealth, it makes my blood boil. 'To have the chance of a prime minister who is born and bred in my neck of the woods. Understands the environment I grew up in if nothing else. And, more so, has a chance to take that top job and maybe, just maybe, make decisions that make a difference to people like me. That's what Andy Burnham represents for me.'However, the sentiment was slightly undermined by the fact that while most recent Tory prime ministers have been privately educated, Sir Keir Starmer was educated at what was, at the time, a state-funded grammar school, albeit in Surrey.Like Mr Burnham, he was the first member of his family to go to university. Mr Simons shared a clip from a Channel 4 interview with Mr Burnham, writing: 'You can't quite see it, but Andy Burnham holding what was his lunch, a Galloways Bakers Butter Pie'He later shared a clip from a Channel 4 interview Mr Burnham did yesterday, writing: 'You can't quite see it, but Andy Burnham holding what was his lunch, a Galloways Bakers Butter Pie.'If you know you know.'Another MP out championing Mr Burnham's man of the people attributes was former minister Justin Mathers.The Ellesmere Port and Bromsborough MP, who was sacked by Keir Starmer in a reshuffle last year, told Times Radio: 'He's head and shoulders above every other Labour politician indeed every politician of any political party. 'I think it's his authenticity, his straight-talking and that sort of common touch that unfortunately so many politicians lack.' The author and journalist Will Self told the BBC that Mr Burnham appeared to be harking back to the past as a unifying candidate who could 'cancel out time' for Labour.'The Burnham factor is an ideological factor that is to do with the nostalgia … for a time that never was,' he said.'It's like the old Hovis advert with Dvořák's New World Symphony playing, it is sort of ''Andy went up the hill to get a loaf of bread and it were always a …smack (sic) barm''.'Where is the detailed policy thinking? What he seems to be running on is communitarianism and this image of an organic Labour past that can be resurrected in a digital age when drone warfare is determining European politics, not cycling up the hill to get a loaf of Hovis.'