BURNHAM really is that bloke who can’t quit The Smiths — and he’s not pretending.

On Monday, the UK prime minister pulled out a guitar in Kyiv and jammed along to The Smiths’ “Rusholme Ruffians”, a moment that leaned hard into the Manchester nostalgia he’s been banking for years. It also fits a pattern: in July, he posted a social video quoting the lyric “I left the north again / I travelled south again” from “Is It Really So Strange?”

This isn’t a late-career affectation, either. Burnham has previously pointed to seeing The Smiths live at Salford University during the Queen Is Dead tour in 1986. And during his 2010 Labour leadership bid, he picked three Morrissey-sung tracks among his eight “desert island” choices: two Smiths singles and one from Morrissey’s solo album Viva Hate.

Burnham’s relationship with the band has come with complications, especially as Morrissey’s politics hardened over time. Burnham has said — albeit “in pretty weak terms” — that he and Morrissey no longer see eye to eye.

He’s also tried, at points, to distance himself from the idea of Smiths fandom as a kind of cultural peacocking. In a 2015 interview, he said he went off the band in his mid-20s because he felt they could be “for people who almost want to make themselves slightly superior”.

Still, at 56, Burnham looks settled on the inevitable: the Smiths are staying in the soundtrack. Kyiv guitar in hand, he doesn’t exactly seem conflicted about it.