Andy Burnham’s wooing of Jim O’Neill has been “quite a dance”, according to the former Goldman Sachs economist. Cynics thought that Mr Burnham, when he was still mayor of Greater Manchester and the Labour candidate for the Makerfield by-election, wanted to reassure the markets by co-opting the cross-party credibility of Lord O’Neill, who had been a Conservative Treasury minister.
As prime minister, Mr Burnham offered to make him a minister in the House of Lords again, but Lord O’Neill did not want to vote as instructed by the Labour whips – even under the new prime minister’s more relaxed system of party discipline.
