LABOUR should get off the fence and support striking public sector workers, Andy Burnham has suggested.

The Labour mayor of Greater Manchester has taken an apparent dig at party bosses as he stressed he would “one day” like a third attempt at becoming party leader.

Mr Burnham was speaking at an ‘in conversation’ event at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, as he pledged his support for industrial action over pay.

Overflowing bins and rubbish strewn across streets has marred Edinburgh’s festivals as refuse workers strike.

Asked about the striking workers, Mr Burnham said: “I support them.”

But the mayor stressed had sympathy for the Labour-run Edinburgh City Council and instead pointed the blame at a lack of funding from the Scottish Government.

He added: “I think it’s hard for the council, to be honest.

“From my perspective, I observe what has happened here as similar to Westminster where councils have been cut to the bone. This is the consequence of it – these things have consequences.

“I’m all about local empowerment – giving power and resources into the hands of people at a local level to build communities. I kind of see the opposite as having happened here where power’s hoovered up to the centre.

“When you’ve got more power in your hands, you can do more to help people with the cost-of-living. I think we should be empowering cities, great cities like this one, to sort things out and do more for themselves.

“You cannot, in any way, this time, criticize any worker on low pay, on a zero hours contract, fighting for their income. It needs to be said and it needs to be heard.

Former Labour MSP Neil Findlay, who was hosting the event, put to Mr Burnham that his perspective on striking workers was “not quite what Keir Starmer is saying” on the issue.

In an apparent dig at Sir Keir’s stance on the strikers, Mr Burnham said: “For Labour, it’s not a time to be neutral, it’s a time to, I think come forward and call it out quite clearly.

“I think there’s a lot of people saying ‘you know what, this isn’t working for us’.

“You cannot do anything other than, in my view, support people who are fighting for their families, their incomes at this particular moment in time. It’s not a time to hold back and hedge your bets and be tentative. You have to be clearer about this cost-of-living crisis.”

Asked if he would stand to become Labour leader after two failed leadership attempts, Mr Burnham said he would consider it “one day”.

He said: “I don’t know if it shows, but I’m actually quite enjoying being mayor of Greater Manchester – a liberating, energising city I love. I enjoy what I do.

“But I also feel now clear about myself in terms of my politics and where I am and what I’m about. I would say one day, I’m not saying ‘no definitely not’.”

Mr Burnham added: “Obviously you have to be an MP to become leader. I’m not making any active moves to get back but if at some point in the future, the circumstances fell.

“I feel I’m building something quite significant. I feel abandoning this now and running straight back to Westminster to have failed really building this English experiment with devolution.”

Mr Burnham also tore into the current Tory party, warning it was being led and run by right-win extremists.

He said: “The Tory party is Ukip – let’s call it as it is.

“The decent Tories have left, they left with Kenneth Clarke and Michael Heseltine and the Ukip lot took it over. That is what we’ve got. Start waking up to that, calling it out and get back to some more humane language and discourse.”