Newington's Oliver Ryan gives his view from the count of the Greater Manchester mayoral election last week.

Andy Burnham managed to buck the national trend last week with his impressive victory in Greater Manchester’s first mayoral election, securing 63% of the vote during the first round and leaving his competition floundering, even in the more Conservative leaning areas of the conurbation such as Trafford and Stockport. A Labour victory in this mayoral race was hardly surprising, however what is important is just how much support Mr Burnham managed to garner to achieve it; Greater Manchester’s Labour MPs will be thankful and somewhat relieved at the sheer amount of people in their constituencies still willing to vote Labour in some form.

I attended the count in Manchester’s Event City on Friday, the vast old train station now a counting hall for Greater Manchester’s ten boroughs, their staff, their ballots and their respective politicos of all colours. What was particularly notable was the absence of any real UKIP support in the room, and similarly the Conservative supporters and councillors of Greater Manchester kept a low profile as a strident Greater Manchester Labour lapped up a much needed win in the face of dire national results.

The relevance of this vote to the upcoming general election is two-fold; that the Labour Party brand is still not nearly as toxic as the Conservative brand in Greater Manchester and that a substantial Labour vote was turned out in the most ‘Brexit’ voting of Greater Manchester’s districts in a mayoral election that hardly mentioned Brexit. This will no doubt ease the nerves of a number of Labour MPs in the area who will see their own vote now as more susceptible to ‘personality politics’, allowing them to defend their seats on their own record and not on that of the “Corbyn or May” pseudo soap drama being played out in the national campaign. In addition, looking to learn from Burnham’s campaign, they will be attempting to set the question of this general election as one of their own local representation, public services and domestic policy issues, steering clear of the ‘Brexit’ saga on which Theresa May is strongly campaigning - to the detriment of her own party’s domestic policy agenda for the coming parliament it must be noted.

The test now for Andy Burnham will be his effectiveness in this new role, his challenge to both justify the position more generally and of course to achieve his policy agenda. During his acceptance speech on Friday, Andy talked of Greater Manchester “leading the world once again” addressing the great “problems of our time” like homelessness, social care and economic growth. He later addressed the Prime Minister directly and challenged the government’s rhetoric on the country “working for everyone”, showing the role will not only be regionally prominent but nationally too. While his aspirations may be admirable, his task will be building a coalition of support within Greater Manchester and its Combined Authority to achieve his ambitions.

Looking to his appointments, he has already declared Cllr Rishi Shori of Bury and Cllr Sir Richard Leese CBE of Manchester as his appointed deputies along with Baroness Hughes. These are very deliberate, overt and informed appointments to ensure not only the support of two of the region’s most robust and respected leaders, but also for diversity and ultimately to ensure the future agenda of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority remains firmly under his control.