It was not quite John Lennon, but Andy Burnham’s invitation for Britain to “imagine good growth in every postcode, hope in every heart” was a lyrical flourish the prime minister presumptive was so pleased with, he repeated it.
His vision was almost as ambitious as Lennon’s dream of world peace. Speaking at the People’s History Museum in Manchester, wearing what he termed his “Manchester clothes” (smart dark casual), he proudly declared: “This is Manchesterism.”
Manchesterism is certainly radical. According to its progenitor, it is nothing less than a 10-year mission to bring “the biggest change in our lifetimes to the way the country is run”, with a council house or flat to all who need one, a reindustrialised and “rewired” British economy, a “No 10 North” tasked with driving forward wide-ranging constitutional reforms to transform the UK.
He promised the “biggest council house programme since the war” – implying not just the 1.5 million units total (private and public) pledged by Sir Keir Starmer but exceeding the 425,000 peak of annual construction reached in the 1960s. At one point he sounded more Lenin than Lennon in his sloganeering – the “biggest rebalancing of power our country has seen”. The audience, predominantly Labour, soft Left and proud of it, loved every word.
Even if, in reality, much of the speech had aspirations found in one of Sir Keir Starmer’s more workmanlike renditions, his only concession to modernity being to take his tie off, Mr Burnham is a visible and audible upgrade in image, oratory and “comms”. They say they do things differently in Manchester.
Mr Burnham seems more quick-witted in public than Sir Keir, and has an easier manner, but he must see that there is very little chance of Kemi Badenoch or, still less, Nigel Farage joining him in his quest for a fairer society and an end to political “point scoring”. Mr Burnham is correct to observe that parliament is now a more “fragmented, disjointed place than the one I left. And, frankly, unhappier”, and no doubt sincere in his efforts to “work hard to change that culture – leading from the front and showing how things can be different”. Good luck with that. His immediate aim is to weaken the whipping system in the Parliamentary Labour Party, when the bitter experience of the failure of modest welfare reform suggests that that is the last thing Labour or the country needs.
It has to be said that there is something of the populist about Burnham, and it is difficult to see how his agenda, even in the long term, is consistent with his clear, if passing, references to maintaining the fiscal rules set by Sir Keir and Rachel Reeves.
His adviser, the distinguished economist Lord O’Neill, has suggested ways an independent agency might convince investors that plans to borrow big to invest in, say, social housing and major rail projects, can generate returns and boost the UK’s long-term growth rate without inducing inflation or a crisis in the public finances. Mr Burnham makes a sound case for how the privatisation of some utilities has proved a disaster – although the abysmal record of Thames Water is an even more eloquent advocate for reversing that particular Thatcher-era excess.
There are, of course, concerns at this stage. In an age when globalisation and the rise of China have seen so much manufacturing drift abroad, Britain shouldn’t be dreaming of an industrial reset to the mid-1980s as Mr Burnham sets out. Given Britain is a medium-sized, modern, open economy reliant on trade, Mr Burnham is also wrong to promote protectionism, which would end up excluding British products from EU and US markets. There is nothing economically magical about devolution, as the experience of Scotland and Wales demonstrates.
Indeed, even in Greater Manchester, Mr Burnham’s fiefdom, the critics argue the benefits of the big city’s skyscrapers haven’t “trickled down” to Rochdale, Bolton or even the environs of Wigan, where Mr Burnham is now the MP for Makerfield.
Curiously, for a speech on economic growth, Mr Burnham failed to mention two factors that will affect the UK’s prospects over the next decade far more than devolution: the relationship with the European Union and artificial intelligence. Perhaps his thoughts and plans on these will emerge later. They will, indeed, have to, of necessity, if only as revealed preferences. So we shall see. For now, as a soon-to-be incoming premier, all should wish Mr Burnham every success in his efforts, and not a little luck; but he does need to be more careful with his promises.
