The current Labour government has faced criticism from many Welsh Labour colleagues in Cardiff for resisting calls to devolve more powers, including over policing and justice.
“I think Andy has a more instinctive understanding of devolution than perhaps Keir Starmer did, and perhaps some other politicians in the UK government have,” Lord Brennan added.
And yet, Burnham seems to have already U-turned on his position that the funding formula used to determine how much money the devolved nations get from Westminster – and which critics say short-changes Wales because it’s mainly based on population share – should be replaced.
In his book, Burnham makes the case for a new formula where “funding would be allocated based on social factors and levels of need”.
“If we don’t do something like this,” he warns, “the North-South divide will only widen in the decades ahead.”
However, this week a Burnham spokesperson told BBC Wales that, while he would “put Wales at the centre of any government he runs”, he had no plans to reform the funding formula.
Dr Ed Poole from Cardiff University wasn’t surprised by the change in tone.
“There’s been lots of political parties and political leaders of every stripe who’ve wanted to go to Westminster to reform the Barnett formula [but] that has always been put on the back burner the closer a leader gets to Number 10 or, perhaps even more importantly, Number 11,” he said.
“If you were to scrap the Barnett formula overnight, you’d be taking many billions of pounds out of the Scottish budget.
“That’s levels of austerity that would be really pretty unthinkable, particularly in the context of the constitutional debate in Scotland.
“It’s a Pandora’s box that any new government – particularly one that’s not coming in with a new electoral mandate – would not want to open.”