Will Scotland buy Burnham's vision of a 'rewired' Britain?

The power of personality is important in politics and in Scottish Labour there is a sense that Andy Burnham is much more of a charmer than Sir Keir Starmer.

I have repeatedly been told by senior party figures that Burnham gets the "vibe" in the country, that he is a "vibes politician".

It is of course one thing sensing how people feel and finding words that might make them feel better, quite another to actually make people's lives better.

That's the challenge Burnham faces.

Many in Labour are optimistic that he can begin to turn around their fortunes after disastrous results in elections for the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Senedd and councils across England.

Even senior SNP figures anticipate some sort of Burnham bounce for Labour in the opinion polls, at least in the short term.

One senior Labour figure said that their new leader would earn the party a "second look" but acknowledged that any prime minister is judged on policy and performance as well as personality.

So what might Andy Burnham actually do in office, especially when it comes to issues affecting Scotland?

The first thing he has promised people across the UK is to ease cost of living pressures with "a bit extra now" or "as soon as I can".

He has not specified what form this might take but there is an expectation in Labour circles that giving people some relief with energy bills would be an obvious priority.

There is not a huge pile of spare cash to draw on but he has regulatory powers in this area and he is freeing up some money by scrapping digital ID.

When it comes to North Sea oil and gas, Burnham seems to be sympathetic to the case for further extraction of both.

Expect him to make an early visit to Aberdeen, which would be an opportunity for him to set out his position in more detail.

While decisions giving the go-ahead to the proposed Rosebank and Jackdaw fields are not his to take, the industry has said that changes to the current windfall tax regime would unlock investment.

Aberdeen is an area Burnham has identified as undergoing an "industrial transition" that he believes could be managed better if more power was transferred to the local area.

This is a major theme for a new prime minister who wants to "extend devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland by taking power deeper down" than Holyrood, Cardiff Bay and Stormont.

This is a potential flashpoint with the Scottish government.

While SNP ministers do want to accumulate further responsibilities on a range of issues from immigration to energy, their interest tends to be in securing these powers for Holyrood.

They've worked with the UK government on city region funding deals to promote economic growth at that level.

But they have declined to replicate England's system of mayors for city regions like Greater Manchester, where Andy Burnham built his political profile as the "King of the North".

My sense is that - as prime minister - he will encourage regional economic cooperation in Scotland, particularly in the M8 corridor between Glasgow and Edinburgh and perhaps between Aberdeen and Dundee.

I doubt he would seek to impose new structures.

An alternative might be for him to propose them in a sufficiently attractive way that would make it hard for any devolved government to resist.

As first minister, John Swinney has made clear that he is perfectly open to working with the PM on areas of shared interest.

They know each other a bit, going back to 2007 when Swinney was finance secretary and Burnham was chief secretary in the UK Treasury.

But it looks as though any forthcoming cooperation will not include enabling another independence referendum.

When he met Scottish Labour MPs recently, Burnham said he would maintain the UK government's opposition to a second poll.

That's a firmer line than he gave when I interviewed him four years ago.

Then, he accepted that the issue was not settled and that it was not for him to determine the circumstances in which there could be another vote.

To be fair, he wasn't prime minister then.

His argument was that a politically "rewired Britain" would be better than its break up.

He now has the opportunity to turn his vision into reality.

And to see if he has judged the political vibes in Scotland and across the UK.