It’s the hope that kills you – so fingers crossed for Andy Burnham | Zoe Williams

Andy Burnham yesterday got himself clear of the magic number – the 323 Labour MPs who had to support him to make any leadership challenge mathematically impossible. Half a week had gone by in limbo, his endorsements standing at 322, everyone knowing he was the next prime minister, nobody able to call it anything more than “likely”. What were those last MPs waiting for? Maybe they were just in it for the atmospherics.

You can’t run a coronation like a slam dunk; it needs choreographed suspense, a sense of ceremony. In an ideal world, the last names would have arrived in the form of a wax-sealed letter, carried by a horse or a bird.

Now Keir Starmer can resign, parliament can go into recess and Burnham can take office next Monday, with the right amount of pomp. Had there been any kind of contest, even briefly, it would have recalled Liz Truss giving way to Rishi Sunak, or Theresa May succeeding David Cameron; whatever your view on the relative merits of those people, the associations would be mainly: “Oh hell, not this again.”

Instead, the change of prime minister is unfolding more like a royal wedding – you feel an ambient duty to spectate and even celebrate, but you’d be mad not to stay sceptical. Whether it’s governing this country or marrying into the royal family, the gig looks like a nightmare.

Unlike a royal wedding, this isn’t an event for which we have precedent. There’s no overall vibe of “behold, your saviour has arrived”. A lot of the signifiers will be made up on the hoof by the media, which could underreact or overreact; given the choice, they will probably go large. We’ll know more by Wednesday, after England’s World Cup semi-final, because the delusion of a nation unified by hope – “hope in every heart”, if you prefer – will be disastrously intensified should it arrive on the back of an outlandish sporting victory.

It would be better for Burnham if his ascendance stayed in the realm of the normal – a normally visionary politician, with a regular amount of supporters and critics. Future disappointments, which are inevitable, would feel more like life and less like a betrayal. But that’s not for him to decide. He just has to hold his nerve and hope that no one starts next Monday, the morning after the final, with a pint at 11am and the national anthem.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist