“I hope you’re doing more than scratching your chin on this lovely bank holiday weekend,” came the first joshing message on Sunday. Others followed suit. My friends were teasing me after I had appeared in a walk-on role in an excellent profile of Andy Burnham published by the online Manchester newspaper the Mill . I was described by the author, Joshi Herrmann, as a representative of the “chin-scratching, intellectual end of the British commentariat”. Much as I would love to dispute this unflattering designation, I fear Joshi has me bang to rights. My wife certainly thinks so. The essence of his piece was that there is no such thing as Burnhamism and all attempts to discover it – mine included – have been a fool’s errand. In fact, Herrmann argues that it was my profile of the mayor of Greater Manchester in this magazine that prompted others to spend so much time trying to discover the essence of his political ideology.…