Andy Burnham has wheeled out his parents to spin for him in today’s Mirror. It was all going so well until this revelation from his mother, Eileen:

“They called our Andy ‘Seven Eights’ at school. He couldn’t remember that seven eights are 56.”

Muuummmm, shut uppp….

Mrs Burnham isn’t the only one to have doubted Andy’s numerical abilities. Before Ed Miliband chose Ed Balls as his Shadow Chancellor, he searched his Shadow Cabinet for an alternative. The FT famously revealed that Burnham was suggested for the job:

“But Andy can’t do maths,” was Mr Miliband’s lament.

It’s not like Burnham was Chief Secretary to the Treasury ahead of the 2008 crash or anything. This sort of embarrassing information could really hurt him when he’s trying to convince Corbyn to make him Shadow Chancellor…