Shouts of “come on Andy!” and clapping as Burnham is about to start

Burnham: “let’s be clear who is most affected by a T3 lockdown. It’s people working in pubs, in bookies, driving taxis- people too often forgotten by those in power.”

Burnham really has transformed much of the debate about lockdown...

Burnham: “it cannot be right to close someone’s place of work without full financial support.”

Burnham says that GM was prepared to go from £90m to £65m “as an absolute minimum to prevent a winter of real hardship, to prevent poverty, to prevent hardship, to prevent homelessness. Not what we wanted. What we needed.”

Burnham says he could not meet commitment to those on lower incomes he’d made on the £60m government was offering. “How can the public with us through this pandemic if we’re forcing them to lose their income, their place of work?”

Problem for Number 10 is that there are a fair few Tory MPs, not just in GM, who will agree with Burnham...

Burnham now says he’s looking to Parliament to intervene. Graham Brady said earlier that if there’s a T3 imposition he wants to see a vote in the commons. Things could get very messy for No10 if that happens...

Burnham to the public: “observe the law at all times, as I know you will.”

This is developing into a reasonably substantial political crisis over a relatively small amount of money (even if commensurate sums were given to other local authorities).

Burnham: “they said to us they would level up. What we’ve seen today is a very deliberate act of levelling down.”

Burnham says he’s looking to all the main parties in Westminster to intervene. He says this isn’t over.

If this becomes a parliamentary problem, an intra-Conservative party problem, a public health problem, the tiers strategy coming apart problem, for the sake of £5m (or even a bit more if extended to other local authorities), it will be quite the political calculation to have made

Bcause if this does go to Parliament suddenly you’ve got the Opposition and the Steve Baker led lockdown sceptics (a macro version of what we’ve seen in Greater Manchester) and potentially a dicey numbers game on your hands.