Sometimes I am a bit thick. Often maybe.
But I had not quite realised that Angela Rayner’s statement that the PM should allow Andy Burnham back into parliament was not a statement about Labour Party democracy.
It was Rayner saying she would back Burnham as and when he runs to be Labour leader.
Or so I am reliably told, to coin the cliché.
In other words, she would not be a candidate in a leadership contest that included Burnham as a candidate.
That has been said to me explicitly, and it feels important.
So does that mean she has abandoned all ambitions to be prime minister?
Not quite.
Her view is that there must be a soft-left dog in any leadership race. And if that race was triggered by Wes Streeting today or in the coming days, while Burnham is still outside the Commons, she would feel it was her duty to be a contestant – unless, that is, another soft-left MP, such as Ed Miliband, were to go for it.
In a nutshell, she seems to have decided her preferred role is to be the maker of the king or queen, not the monarch herself. Unless duty calls.
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