How can he walk the talk?

Well, you've just heard him lay out an incredibly bold, brave and ambitious plan for the country.

You know, when Andy Burnham became prime minister, there were those that said he didn't have a plan.

There were those that criticised his vibes.

I think he has absolutely proved his critics wrong today and laid out an incredibly brave, honest and ambitious plan for the country.

And he sets out a lot of clear steps from water, energy, housing and, of course, how to fix social care, the thing that he's been campaigning on for 25 years.

If a national care service or rethinking the voting system is such a good idea, why wait another four years to do it?

Well, because he's announced today that an adjustment to the triple lock will drive the savings that will be reinvested in care.

Secretary of State, how will we know if it's working? What do we look out for?

Well, I would point to the success of Greater Manchester.

I wondered if we'd go to Manchester.

Go on, Louise Hayes.

Well, I'm here in Sheffield, so that shows how magnanimous and how successful it is that I can say that from Sheffield, Nick.

The fastest growing region in the country combined.

with the largest fall in deprivation levels.

so how big a slice of the pie or the cake will these local author will these local mayors get secretary of state

... about looking after people with the need to keep the bills down?

Yeah, I mean, that's absolutely right.

The welfare bill is ballooning, uh, massively, and in large part because there has been such a huge increase in PIP and in youth unemployment.

You know, we inherited when we came into government a situation where a million young people, so under 24s, were out of work, not in education or training either.

And that number hasn't shifted, and that is a terrible scarring effect for the economy, for society.

But for those young people, to be u- unemployed at that stage of your life can have profound consequences for the whole rest of your life.

The problem with the, where the way the government tried to attempt to tackle this issue last year was just very blunt, short-term cuts, just hacking off the benefit eligibility and the amount that people would be entitled to.

So how can a Burnham government change that?

Uh, you were talking to her about exactly how they've been running their campaign.

The numbers of activists that we've had through the door have been almost impossible to mana- uh, to manage.

The field team have been absolutely exceptional.

On Saturday alone, uh, we had about 450 activists here, and by about 3:00 in the afternoon we'd knocked half the constituency.

I think Question Time was a really defining moment in the campaign.

When we were knocking that evening s- like, nearly everyone was like, "Oh yeah, I'm watching Question Time tonight." It'll be fantas- uh, fascinating to see what their viewing figures are, 'cause [laughs] I feel like that was the first time I'd watched it in about 10 years as well.

Yeah, I

think because we in Westminster have sort of seen him as out the fray for the last nine years, you forget that he's actually been doing all this great work in Greater Manchester.

And he's still been doing, obviously, in that time, your Question Times, your national interviews or whatever.

So he's not lost any of that at all.

And in fact, it's really...

I think it's really sharpened his views.

It's given him amazing experience that he wouldn't have had should he have remained in Westminster over in the last nine years.

But how are you, what's the mood in the camp? How confident are you that he's going to win?

These things can sound quite jargony and arcane, so can you just talk through in simple terms what you think and would like to see?

Yeah, I've basically become increasingly concerned about the economic strategy and the repeated attempts to make very short-termist and harmful cut.

Basically, the Office for Budget Responsibility was set up by George Osborne in 2010 as an independent check on his fiscal differences.

But the way it was established was essentially to embed austerity, because it privileges and prioritizes spending cuts rather than measuring and assessing the long-term implications of decisions.

So it's very, very poor at analyzing long-term productivity advantages, for example, of our workers' rights reforms, or-

... seeing and responding to reform at the moment?

Well, I think there's two elements to that.

One is allowing the language around migrants and ethnic minority communities to be completely dictated by the far right, and allowing them to set the terms of the debate so easily, frankly, and not to challenge any of that.