Andy Burnham will enter Downing Street on Monday with a promise to create a 'No 10 North' in Manchester, vowing it will become “the nerve centre of a rewired Britain”. The former mayor of Greater Manchester, who formally assumed the Labour leadership in a speech declaring his mission “to bring back hope”, has said a dedicated department in the city will oversee plans to devolve power and resources to cities and regions across the UK.
The proposal echoes the BBC’s own move north – the “Out of London” plan launched by then director general Mark Thompson in 2004 – which was initially met with deep scepticism. “It didn’t take a brain surgeon,” said Breakfast presenter and Strictly Come Dancing winner Chris Hollins, to see that the prime minister would never appear in person. Jeremy Clarkson, then presenting Top Gear, said he would rather quit than relocate to “a small suburb with a Starbucks and a canal with ducks”. “If we ran the show from Salford, we’d be employing people from Salford,” Clarkson added. “People … who thought: ‘Yes, I like this. I see no reason to go anywhere else.’ And in the world of television, that could be a genuine handicap.”
“New PM Andy Burnham pledges a 'No 10 North' in Manchester, echoing BBC's Salford move, as he takes office on Monday.”
Fifteen years on, MediaCity in Salford docks is home to 3,500 BBC staff – producing significant output including current World Cup coverage – and 250 other creative and tech businesses drawn by the broadcaster’s presence. Now Burnham hopes to replicate that success. But details of his plan remain sketchy, and some are sceptical. “Sounds performative and seems like a gimmick,” one Labour MP told PoliticsHome.
The new prime minister faces a precarious opening phase. Jonathan Freedland, writing in the Guardian, warned that Burnham is still “a relatively unknown quantity” to many voters outside Greater Manchester, and that his first weeks will shape public perception. He urged Burnham to avoid the mistake of Keir Starmer, who “ruined his own honeymoon by promising that things would only get worse”, and to sidestep the fate of Gordon Brown, whose talk of an early election “rapidly developed its own momentum”.
Burnham arrives without the slate-cleaning mandate of a general election win, but Freedland noted a “goodwill that must not be squandered” – a sense that after seven prime ministers in 10 years, the country needs him to succeed. For now, the PM’s challenge is to turn hope into something more durable, while proving that power can indeed move north.