How the contest is shaping up two weeks ahead of crucial Makerfield by-election

Labour's Andy Burnham is still dancing delicately in the language he is choosing to use about his ambitions, but his remarks on the BBC's Question Time were a hop and a shimmy further than he has stepped before.

It is worth looking at his wording carefully: "I think Wes Streeting seems to have launched a leadership contest, so if that is running, I would seek to join it. But I'd have to persuade members of the Parliamentary Labour Party to do the same."

Clearly Burnham is desperate not to be seen to be presumptuous, at any potential stage in this process – not least to the people of the Makerfield constituency who he needs to win over in the next couple of weeks.

Streeting, the former health secretary, has not formally launched a contest either, but Burnham is suggesting he would join an existing contest rather than trigger one himself.

This is a subtle distinction, but a distinction Burnham's allies do point to – to again seek to emphasise he is not trigger happy, he is not seeking to get ahead of himself.

But let's be frank: Fiona Bruce and Question Time weren't in Ashton-in-Makerfield at random and Andy Burnham doesn't suffer from a deficit of ambition.

In fact his very mention of the prospect of a contest goaded Downing Street into restating the prime minister's position, with a No10 spokesman pointing out that "the Labour Party has a process for challenging a leader and it has not been triggered. The prime minister will not walk away from the mandate he was given just two years ago."

They didn't quite say "get lost Andy (at least for now)" but it felt just a little bit like that in its sentiment.