Andy Burnham was confirmed as Labour leader on Friday, 379 votes to one, and on Monday he becomes prime minister. That's the news. Now let's look at how the Guardian dressed it. * The sketch went full pageant: "All hail the king! Good vibes and Greggs as Burnham addresses the Andyites." John Crace's own first paragraph: "Not so much Labour electing a new leader, more a coronation." The editorial, meanwhile, cleared its throat and warned that "political poetry must become governing prose." So the paper knows exactly what day it is. * And then there's the piece that looks like the day's throwaway: "'This will offend a lot of people': Burnham reveals how he takes his tea." Standfirst: the incoming PM "has deigned to answer some quickfire TikTok questions — also revealing his stance on socks with sandals." Lifestyle content. Skip it, right? * Don't. Three paragraphs in, the tea story quietly files the most important sentence written about Britain's next prime minister this week: "Burnham has kept his plans for office wrapped so tightly that even loyalists within his party are thought to be totally in the dark." He has, the same piece notes, "submitted himself to few questions from the media" for weeks. The country gets a new PM on Monday; the plan arrives sometime after; in the meantime, there's a TikTok about Christmas dinner. * That is a genuinely alarming piece of information, and the Guardian had it — reported it, even wrote it with a little knife-work ("deigned" is not a neutral verb). Then it wrapped the whole thing in a tea cosy. The headline is the packaging, and the packaging says smile-piece. A skimming reader — which is most readers — leaves knowing the man's milk order and not that Britain is about to swear in a blank page. * We'd grade this one both ways. The reporting: sharp, sly, doing its job. The presentation: the single best argument for scrutinizing the incoming prime minister got billed below his socks. When the plans finally do come out next week, remember which paragraph told you first — and what the headline above it was about.