Andy Burnham: Prime Mancunian

ANDY BURNHAM ARRIVED at No 10 bearing something none of his six predecessors this decade could claim: public goodwill. Twice a leadership also-ran, he returned from Manchester as an outsider who seems to understand ordinary discontent, promising to loosen Westminster’s grip on power, rebuild public con­trol of essential services, and launch the biggest housing programme since the postwar decades. His pitch, which he called a “circuit breaker” after years of drift, landed because it named what voters already felt: that London has failed them. But can the cheering survive contact with the spreadsheets of His Majesty’s Treasury? Britain’s productivity has stagnated since 2008; welfare and pension bills are climbing; and there is little room to borrow.

Burnham insists new spending must come from taxation, not debt, yet has offered no clue where growth will happen. His faith rests on devolution and a symbolic northern outpost of Downing Street. While these are appealing gestures, civic reorganisation is no investment strategy. Government structures, however efficient, cannot substitute for a private sector willing to invest, and four-fifths of UK investment still comes from business, not the town hall.

Burnham chose his chancellor wisely—John Healey understands finance and cannot be attacked like Ed Miliband. And the cabinet, stacked with cautious Treasury and defence veterans rather than reformists, hints at continuity, not rup­ture. That may reassure markets, but it also undercuts Burn­ham’s own rhetoric, which might after all be good. Manchester taught him how to manage decline locally; it did not teach him how to reverse it nationally. Optimism bought Burnham the job. Whether it survives his first budget is another matter.