As Andy Burnham enters No 10, what of his ‘bezzie mate’ Steve Rotheram? | Andy Burnham

KWhen a new prime minister enters Downing Street, observers often look around the cabinet table to see where the influence lies. They should look 200 miles north with Andy Burnham; Not to Manchester, but to Liverpool.

Steve Rotheram, the mayor of the Liverpool city region, may not have a formal role in government but he has a strong claim to have the closest personal link with the new prime minister, whom he calls his “famous friend”.

Rotheram, a former bricklayer who helped rebuild the Falkland Islands after the 1982 war, is an unknown quantity to many Westminster observers.

He served as Liverpool Walton MP for seven years – including a stint as parliamentary deputy during Jeremy Corbyn’s time as Labor leader – until 2017, when he convinced Burnham that they should go for newly created mayoral posts in Manchester and Liverpool.

Nine years later Burnham became prime minister. Could Rotheram also return to Westminster?

“It just crossed my mind as a joke,” he said of reports that mayors could be appointed to the House of Lords as a step towards the upper house being more representative of countries and regions.

“There’s all this speculation,” he said. “I’ll be Lord Rotheram of Kirkby, I’ll be so-and-so’s czar, I’ll be minister of devo – all these wonderful things. Wonderful, I wish someone would tell me”.

Rotheram, 64, said he has no intention of stepping down as mayor, which he called “the privilege of pinching me for a living.”

Why leave, some might ask, when wealth will soon be flowing into Merseyside thanks to his friend in Downing Street?

Rotheram quickly defeats this. “There is a danger [people] I believe we can get past the system just because we have a friendship, and that’s not going to happen. “This is the people’s money,” he said.

“There are the same rules to stop Boris Johnson ruffling the feathers of his friends, the same rules to stop friendship being the only way to deliver projects.”

The pair’s political friendship dates back to 2008, when Burnham was Gordon Brown’s culture secretary and met Rotheram, then mayor of Liverpool, at various soirees during the city’s year as the European capital of culture.

The bond was further strengthened when Rotheram followed Burnham to parliament in 2010, and the pair became drinking buddies, bonded by a shared sense of being outsiders in Westminster.

They spend time at each other’s houses, and Burnham’s wife, Marie-France van Heel, is friends with Sandra Rotheram. They go to gigs together and share a love of Manchester band the Courteeners, whose hit Take Over the World became the unofficial anthem of Burnham’s unsuccessful 2015. Leadership campaign led by Rotheram. The song includes the line: “I think it’s time for you and me to take over the world.”

But it was the Hillsborough disaster that cemented their friendship. While Rotheram was supporting his beloved Liverpool in the FA Cup semi-final, Burnham had friends at Sheffield Wednesday’s ground as he watched Everton at Villa Park that day. Together they fought a decades-long fight for justice for the 97 victims and their families.

Burnham name-checked Rotheram in his first speech as Labor leader on Friday and promised to “take power back from Westminster and Whitehall and give it to where you live” by expanding the devolution agenda he has overseen in Greater Manchester.

He expressed Rotheram’s desire to bring the Merseyrail network into public ownership by 2028.

Rotheram and other mayors want the incoming prime minister to go further in devolving powers over skills, particularly control of technical education for 16 to 18-year-olds. Many complained about the difficulties they had dealing with the Department for Education in Whitehall.

Under plans given to Burnham’s team in recent weeks, mayors will appoint health and education commissioners to oversee local schools, GPs and childcare providers, in a role similar to that played by police and crime commissioners.

Mayor of South Yorkshire, Oliver Coppard, believes Burnham may be “more radical than most people think” by emphasizing the importance of local public control of utilities such as energy and water.

This is “a moment of realization that decisions on everything from planning, skills, education, job rates, growth, transport, health and much more can be made on a much more human scale,” he said.