Andy Burnham has got away with it. He pulled a fast one, took a risk and came up smiling. After the election of Bev Craig to replace him as mayor of Greater Manchester, his smile is broader still.

His first risk was going back on his promise to the people of the area to serve out his term as mayor because he saw a chance to become prime minister. You can’t do that, Sir Keir Starmer told him at the first time of asking: the people of Greater Manchester won’t like it, and they’ll vote in a Reform mayor to punish Labour.

Two months later, a weakened Starmer couldn’t stop him for a second time, and Burnham took a risk in a more Reform-minded constituency – a gamble that paid off handsomely. Burnham the Farage-slayer marched south and seized the crown.

Then, on Thursday, the Burnham-led Labour Party trounced Reform in the Greater Manchester mayoral by-election.

The result of Britain’s biggest-ever by-election was a strikingly good one for Labour. Never mind that Craig did not win outright on first-preference votes, or that turnout was low. She won twice as many votes as Sian Astley, the Reform candidate, in the first round, and still had nearly twice as many votes after second-preference votes for losing candidates were transferred.

Craig would have won crushingly if the vote had been held under the first-past-the-post system, which the Conservatives introduced for party-political advantage. Labour’s switch back to the original preferential voting system was equally disgracefully made for party-political advantage, but it wasn’t needed after all.

As for turnout, 25 per cent seems low, a drop from 32 per cent in the 2024 election that returned Burnham for his third term as mayor, but local council by-election turnouts of less than 20 per cent are common. Nor was there much incentive to turn out, as the opinion polls suggested Labour would win easily.

That said, Labour outperformed the opinion polls – contradicting the rule of thumb that polls around the world have a tendency to overstate support for parties of the left. The Burnham bounce is real.

The result also confirmed that Reform has a problem with the breakaway to its right – Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain, polling 9 per cent – although Craig did not even need Green and Lib Dem second-preference votes to beat the combined forces of Reform, Restore and the Conservatives.

As it was, Labour scooped up a bigger share of Green and Lib Dem second preferences than Reform did of Restore and Conservative transfers – with some reports on the ground of a small but notable number of Tory voters giving their second vote to Labour to try to stop Reform.

It was also a poor result for the Green candidate, Geraldine Coggins, who at one point hoped to overtake Reform for second place. She ended up a distant third. The excitement of the Gorton and Denton by-election and Zack Polanski’s big talk of replacing Labour already seems a long time ago.

Just because Burnham, as the risk-taker, has got this far does not mean he will continue to turn his risks into rewards. He has shown himself to be quick and sure-footed in his first two weeks, despite worries he wasn’t ready to take office.

He turned out to be less unready than Starmer was, which means he has made a more favourable first impression. This must be frustrating for Starmer, and some of the cabinet ministers Burnham sacked are irritated – although only Darren Jones has shown it in public. According to The Times, Jones will launch a caucus of backbench MPs in the autumn to hold Burnham to account for his fiscal prudence.

They will be asking the right questions. How will Burnham and his partner in mischief, John Healey, get through the Budget without raising taxes? Healey has shown himself to be just as nimble as the prime minister, resigning over a specific demand for higher defence spending and then refusing to commit to that demand now that he is in charge of the finances.

Meanwhile, Burnham has thrown himself into the spiked money pit of social care reform. It seems impossible that our mild-mannered hero can get himself out of this self-inflicted predicament alive – and yet somehow it feels as if he might.

The Greater Manchester by-election suggests that he has chosen just the right moment to make his move for No 10, as Reform and the Greens, who ate away at Labour support from both sides, are suddenly losing ground – in both cases because their leaders’ judgement has been found wanting.

Two weeks in, and Burnham has got away with it so far. But maybe he will get away with it for a lot longer.