Looking out across the River Mersey, Andy Burnham focused on one thing.
The Hill Dickinson Stadium is the newest landmark in Liverpool’s famous skyline. More importantly, it is home to the prime minister’s beloved Everton Football Club.
Having returned to the city of his birth for his first Labour conference as the party’s leader, Mr Burnham on Saturday took a trip on a new Mersey Ferry with chancellor John Healey and close friend Steve Rotheram, mayor of the Liverpool City Region.
Mr Burnham’s oft-mentioned love for Everton, a historic institution which has taken some recent missteps and is now trying to rebuild a brighter future on Liverpool’s waterfront, is the biggest signifier of his Scouse credentials. But his identity is somewhat complicated in this corner of England.
The prime minister was born in Aintree, on the outskirts of Liverpool, before moving at a young age to nearby Culcheth in Warrington, found between the city and its great local rival Manchester.
Despite being born to two parents from Liverpool, his time spent in Culcheth and an accent that is often mischaracterised as being either definitively Scouse or Manc, but instead carries characteristics of both, he is at risk of being seen as a “woolyback”, the not always kind Liverpool term for those from the rugby league towns outside the city.
That identity is further complicated by his previous job – the mayor of Greater Manchester – where he became Mr Manchester and by extension “King of the North”.
As such, the prime minister’s identity remains a “great debate” in England’s North West, according to Liam Thorp, who co-wrote Mr Burnham and Mr Rotheram’s book Head North and is political editor at the Liverpool Echo.
Mr Thorp told The Independent: “Is he more Manc or more Scouse? Obviously, since he became mayor of Greater Manchester, he was keen to drum up his Manchester credentials.
“But ultimately, he was born in Liverpool. The greatest love of his life is Everton Football Club.”
Mr Thorp believes that the impact this city, its left-wing values and dislike of injustice have had on the prime minister cannot be underestimated.
“Speaking to him this week aboard the Mersey Ferry, he was really keen to talk about how Liverpool shaped him as a young man and also his politics”, he said.
“He spoke about the resilience, the strength, and the colour that you see in Liverpool every day – the people, ultimately. Andy Burnham's family emigrated from Ireland in the 1800s to this city, like so many did, and his granddad drove a lorry down at the docks.
“He talks about watching Boys from the Blackstuff as a formative experience, and the difficult days that this city experienced in the 1980s really shaped his politics and who he is as a person as well.
“Then we obviously get to the biggest thing of all, which is Hillsborough. I don't think any single event has been more important to the man who's now prime minister than Hillsborough and the justice campaign, how he became involved with it, and what it taught him about this country and what needs to change.
“So I think Liverpool's had a massive impact on Andy Burnham.”
Mr Burnham’s support for the families of the 97 football fans who died in the Hillsborough disaster is central to his politics.
He addressed the 20th anniversary service at Anfield in 2009, representing Gordon Brown’s government, and was heckled as Liverpool called for more to be done from a Labour Party it had long been loyal to.
Since then, Mr Burnham has been a firm ally of the families in their fight for justice and a Hillsborough Law. That has not gone unnoticed by the people of Liverpool.
On the city’s Pier Head, away from the conference zone, the way in which the prime minister stood up for those who have spent decades fighting a system which failed them is a point of great respect.
Joe Peers, 75, from Aigburth in the south of the city, volunteered at Hillsborough Justice Campaign Shop, a centre for remembrance and support for those affected by the disaster, through which he met Mr Burnham.
He believes it shows the mark of the man. As such he is “very optimistic” for his premiership.
“I got to know Andy Burnham as a person before he was the mayor of Manchester and all that business. So he was becoming one of the people”, Mr Peers told The Independent.
He added: ‘He was standing in the Hillsborough Justice Campaign Shop, working behind the counter.
“The whole top and bottom of it was that we got to know the man, not this figurehead.
“You've got to get to understand the person, not the figurehead; once you understand the person, you can use him as a figurehead. There's no use having a figurehead if you don't understand the person and what he's saying.
“There's a lot of respect for him, especially from the ones that used to go into the shop itself for support and help.”
Who Mr Burnham is as a person owes a lot to the city of his birth, according to Mr Rotheram, who was born around four miles away from Mr Burnham in Kirkby.
And he believes his friend’s upbringing can only be a good thing for this city.
“It’s not just that he was born here, but that he’s had that relationship for all the years through his ‘Evertonianness’”, he told The Independent.
“He’s obsessed with his football club and team, meaning he comes and sees the changes in Liverpool.
“He was an Evertonian in the 1980s when Liverpool (as a city) was in the doldrums and really struggling. Work was hard to find, and people migrated to all parts of the country - that’s why you see Scousers everywhere.”
As the conference’s location on Liverpool’s regenerated waterfront proves, this city has come a long way from the challenges of the 1980s. But there is still a feeling here that it has been left behind by Manchester, now firmly positioning itself as the country’s second city.
For Mr Thorp, the prime minister’s use of the term “Manchesterism” to describe his politics – in essence bringing his business-friendly socialist approach with which he ran that city region to the nation – might not go down well here.
“I think it probably just needs to be explained without the branding”, he said.
“Everyone knows there's a rivalry between these two great cities. It mainly extends around football, but there is definitely a feeling here that Manchester has had a lot more airtime and attention focused on it.
“However, the concept of Manchesterism – if you explain it in terms of using values of fairness, decency, and combining a pro-business attitude with socialism essentially, trying to create growth in a way that works for ordinary people – Liverpool would love to experience more of that. And it is starting to.”
Mr Rotheram would agree. Asked whether the word ‘Manchesterism’ would go down well in Liverpool, the prime minister’s close ally said: “Probably not, in all honesty.
“But I'd call it Liverpoolism, just as leaders in other regions would call it Bristolism, Newcastleism, Leedsism, or Sheffieldism.
“What Andy did in Greater Manchester demonstrates that you don't have to wait for Whitehall to make local decisions.”
Some tension remains on the streets of Liverpool, however, as to whether Mr Burnham’s time running Manchester means Liverpool could be left behind.
“He was born a Scouser, but then he transferred to Manchester, a rival position, you see”, said Mary Leatham, 87.
“It (Manchesterism) just doesn't go down well with me. Once a Scouser, always a Scouser”, she added.
Her husband Barry, 85, is more positive. But this may be due to his footballing allegiances, he suggested.
Like Mr Burnham, he is an Evertonian, whereas Ms Leatham supports Liverpool.
“We'll have to wait and see how he gets on,” he said.
The Leathams, like much of Liverpool, are lifelong Labour voters. But they had little time for Sir Keir Starmer, who Mr Leatham said was a “gentleman” but lacks the “Northern grit” he hopes to see from Mr Burnham.
“It'll take him a long time to sort it out. But I think he'll do all right.”
But Mr Leatham had a few suggestions for the prime minister about how he could govern - and a way in which he could life the mood of the Blue half of the city, in a footballing rather than political sense.
“I think he should make Duncan Ferguson the defence secretary and Peter Reid the chancellor of the exchequer. I mean, let's get it right.”, he said.
“And there is one thing he could do for the city. Get Everton a centre-forward.”
