Andy Burnham ©House of Commons

Andy Burnham has been Prime Minister since 20 of July but it was not until 14 August, 25 days later, that he finally managed to acknowledge that the climate is changing.

He had been criticised by people both within and outside the Labour party for this failure, despite the droughts and wildfires that have been raging in many parts of the world.

He told Donald Trump that that the UK “can’t ignore” North Sea oil and gas, and he was taking a “pragmatic approach” when it comes to the North Sea, which was widely taken to mean he would consider extracting further fossil fuels.

But on Friday he finally manged to say a few words on the subject of climate change, although without actually mentioning those terrible words. He is reported to have said “There’s no point denying where we are. We need to face up to it. We need more clean energy, We need to see that transition accelerate”.

Why did this miracle happen?

Perhaps it was because he had received a letter from more than 50 green groups who urged him to command the same clarity of position now as he had demonstrated in his mayoral leadership. That meant, they wrote, publicly recognising the scale of the crisis, naming its cause, and using his position to tackle this grave threat to our lives and livelihoods now and the lives of our children and grandchildren in the future.

Apart from the few words quoted above, he has so far done nothing. So now we must wait to see what action, if any, he and his government will take to resolve the most serious problem the UK and the whole world is facing.