Call me a cynic, but when Andy Burnham started fumbling so badly over the early release of PC Andrew Harper's killers, I suspected it was political theatre.I assumed he was deliberately conjuring a crisis – precisely so that, in one leap and a bound, he'd quickly overcome it.Unlike his emotionless predecessor as Prime Minister, a lawyer who preferred abstract legal procedure to the messy reality of governing, Burnham was meant to have a sense of how the British public ticked.Surely, I said to myself, 'Andy' couldn't be this tone-deaf, this weak? The whole country was appalled at the very thought of PC Harper's smirking killers being let out early: How could he fail to see that any steps to prevent this from happening would be worth taking?NonsenseBurnham's claque within the Labour Party, the same ones who stabbed Keir Starmer in the back, seem convinced that he's a brilliant communicator with the surest political instincts since Tony Blair. That grizzled warmonger himself, perhaps growing fond in his dotage, laughably compares Burnham's 'people-person' skills to those of the lavishly empathetic Bill Clinton.Well, put it this way: after the past few days, I have my doubts. Having swanned off on holiday barely two weeks into the job, he has been spamming social media with inane TikToks about whether he prefers pork scratchings to salt and vinegar crisps.Meanwhile, a social and political crisis has been unfolding beneath his feet.Let me be clear: if he doesn't get a grip of it, it will sink him – just as it did Starmer.PC Harper (pictured with his wife Lissie) was 28 when he was killed in August 2019 after responding to reports of a stolen quad bike in Berkshire Albert Bowers, left, and Jessie Cole, right, jailed for his manslaughter, would be eligible for early release this year after serving half their 13-year sentencesWhen Sir Keir arrived in Downing Street two years ago, swept to power on that historic – if notably 'loveless' – landslide, he immediately presided over a disaster of mass early prison releases, a scheme orchestrated by the current Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood in her former role at the Ministry of Justice. The first weeks of Starmer's tenure were bedevilled by stomach-churning photographs of hardened criminals swaggering out of HMP Wandsworth, flicking obscene gestures at the cameras and swilling champagne before clambering into six-figure supercars and roaring off.Those pictures helped shape Starmer's early premiership, and the perception it was not really he who was in charge, but a faceless, unelected and unaccountable cabal of lawyers and mandarins. Bluntly, he never recovered.For Burnham, I predict the political fallout of early releases will be orders of magnitude worse. The public's patience for this kind of thing is exhausted.In particular, right-thinking people are disgusted at the thought of PC Harper's thuggish killers, Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers, being released after serving just half of their already-inadequate 13-year sentences, handed down in 2020. Many found it inexplicable they were charged with manslaughter, not murder.As readers well know, the newly married PC Harper, who was just 28, was killed while investigating the theft of a quad bike in Sulhamstead, Berkshire.His feet became tangled in a towrope that was attached to a car in which Cole and Bowers were passengers, and he suffered unspeakable injuries while being dragged at speeds of more than 40mph for over a mile.Nearly a million people have signed a petition organised by the Police Federation, demanding that Cole and Bowers' release be blocked.That, I might add, is about 40 times more than voted Andy Burnham into Parliament for the seat of Makerfield – the flimsy basis of his premiership. Yet still the PM claims he cannot intervene.On Monday, Downing Street said it 'pushed hard on what more we could do' but limply claimed it was impossible to exempt 'one or two offenders' from early release. Last week Burnham even alleged that exempting criminals from the scheme would cause the prison system to collapse 'within months'. Prime Minister Andy Burnham has approved a controversial prison release scheme to ease overcrowding in jails