Was that it? On Tuesday, by the time Andy Burnham rose to speak to the Commons, he had already been PM for longer than Liz Truss managed. He received an enthusiastic reception from his own Parliamentary party, or at least the ones who turned up. In his heyday, Ted Heath was nicknamed the incredible sulk. Perhaps Keir Starmer will now take over that role. But leaving him on one side, a large number of people were waiting to hear what Mr Burnham had to say, often with some excitement.
There was obviously a problem. The new PM believes in hope, and wants to spread that as widely as possible. Yet there are limits. Too little hope could be discouraging, and there has surely been enough of that lately. But there is a risk on the other side, of sounding facile. To be convincing, there had to be a sound basis of realism.
Combining hope and realism should not overstrain the power of a good speech writer. But that writer would need something to work with, which means a Prime Minister who knows what he believes and who will not duck the hard questions. By those criteria, Mr Burnham failed. At the end, what did he tell us? He is in favour of lower bus fares, but little else, with one exception. The PM treated us to some political philosophy, and nothing more naive has ever been heard in an important forum since the days of Jeremy Corbyn.
With Mr Burnham, we were back to neo-liberalism, and the evils of Margaret Thatcher. That, we are told, is when the country went wrong. Oh for a proper forensic television interviewer, a Brian Walden or a Jeremy Paxman, to dissect all that. Could the PM tell us about Tony Blair? Presumably his Premiership took place in the years when everything was going wrong. So does this mean that Mr Blair was a neo-liberal? What about Gordon Brown? In at least one soft interview which he gave in order to publicise his new book, Mr Brown refused to discuss Mr Blair. Mr Burnham would be wise to do likewise.
To be fair to Andy Burnham, in recent weeks he had shown some signs of facing reality. Some of those he has consulted, most notably Jim O'Neill, formerly of Goldman Sachs, have stressed the importance of economic growth. They have also pointed out that no country has ever taxed its way to prosperity, and that the golden goose is a migratory bird. Equally, there was a time when Mr Burnham seemed to think that he could brush aside the bond markets. It is said that he now knows better, especially as their first response to his speech was to push up interest rates.
Back to Lady Thatcher, whose unquiet ghost still plays a crucial role in British politics, and who still has lessons to teach - or in Mr Burnham's case, lessons to learn. Yet even though Thatcherism has passed into political vocabulary, it was never an intellectually complex doctrine and is easy to define: the application of common sense in pursuit of national survival.
In 1979, there seemed every reason to believe that Britain was washed up. In a very few decades, we had endured a drastic decline. So recently, we had been one of the saviours of Europe. Now, we were the sick man of Europe. To adapt a title from John Hoskyns' memoir, Margaret Thatcher came 'Just in time.'
What did this involve? It meant bringing trade unions under the rule of law. It prevented nationalised industries from plundering the national treasury. It brought down income tax from confiscatory levels to sustainable ones. Above all, it brought back hope. Andy Burnham was not the first politician to aspire to be a merchant of hope. Margaret Thatcher did so, not by banging on about it but by taking practical steps. Although 'animal spirits' are hard to quantify, they are a vital economic factor. She revived the animal spirits of the British middle classes. She inspired people to believe that British greatness was no longer confined to the history books. Once again, it was possible to hope that the best was yet to be.
This optimism was not confined to the middle classes. When Tony Benn wrote Labour manifestos, he called for an irreversible shift of wealth and power to working people and their families. His words: Margaret Thatcher's deeds. How else could one describe council house sales?
She was not always successful. In the late Eighties, for a complexity of reasons, the government lost control of inflation, one reason why her relations with senior colleagues broke down: one reason why she fell. But all in all, it was a wonderful record. Churchill saved his country in war: Thatcher did the same in peace.
So what does Andy Burnham think? Kemi Badenoch asked him whether he really wanted to go back to the 1970s. We await his answer.
He also claimed that Brexit was responsible for Britain's economic difficulties. Those tempted to think that this is true should look at the recent economic performance of France, Germany and Spain. That should disabuse anyone of the notion that the EU is a magic potion.
There is another explanation for our current economic travails. In retrospect - wonderful panacea, hindsight - Covid was mishandled. The expenditure on welfare was grossly excessive and the poisonous legacy remains, overshadowing every aspect of economic life. Unless this is tackled, we will be condemned to low growth, high levels of youth unemployment and pressure for tax increases, partly to avoid an appeal to the IMF.
During her disastrous Chancellorship, Rachel Reeves made everything much worse. Did she mean to increase the burdens on employers and investors and thus do everything possible to discourage growth? Or did she have as much clue about the economy as she did about drafting an accurate CV?
For an explanation, we can await future generations of political archaeologists. There are more urgent tasks, none more so than dealing with welfare. Again, we await developments. Is the new Prime Minister prepared to defy many of his backbenchers, who simply want to tax the so-called rich and close both eyes and ears to the consequences? Or is he ready to act in the national interest?
Thus far, the signs are not hopeful. We know that Mr Burnham is a likeable fellow who does smiley faces with great aplomb. But we may be about to learn that you can smile and smile and be a cipher.