Andy Burnham has vowed to prove John Swinney wrong after the Scottish First Minister predicted that he would be the last Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
The Prime Minister said the SNP leader's prediction had strengthened his determination to defend the Union and move power out of Whitehall.
In a personal passage near the end of his Labour conference speech in Liverpool on Tuesday, Burnham said Swinney had made the remark on the day his father died.
He was careful not to suggest the SNP leader knew of the bereavement. "I quote that not to seek sympathy. Nor to criticise John Swinney, I don't think he knew the news at the time," Burnham told delegates.
He said the prediction had left him "utterly determined to prove him wrong".
Swinney made his prediction at a Cardiff gathering with Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth and Sinn Féin vice-president Michelle O'Neill earlier this month. The three leaders backed their respective constitutional ambitions and argued that decisions should be made closer to the people affected by them.
Burnham offered a different answer to the demand for greater self-government. He pledged to fight for the United Kingdom while transferring more power from Whitehall to communities and leaders across its four nations. His conference speech described the country he wanted to preserve as one shaped by the opportunities that had been available to his father and, in turn, to his family.
The exchange puts a central question in focus: whether deeper devolution within the UK can answer demands for constitutional change in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
