Andy Burnham stood on Monday at the People's History Museum in Manchester, dressed in his now-familiar dark T‑shirt and jacket, and set out the blueprint he hopes will transform Britain. The person widely expected to be the next prime minister – likely to take over from Keir Starmer in less than three weeks – promised the “biggest rebalancing of power our country has ever seen”.
The current system, he said, was “broken” and “more of the same” would not be enough. “They require radical change if the country is to get back on track,” he told the audience, anchoring his address in an ambition to “lift the country back up” and revive hope among fed‑up voters. There needed to be a dramatic change in how Britain is governed, “not just who governs it”.
“Andy Burnham set out plans for devolution, public ownership, and new housing in a major speech ahead of becoming PM.”
At the heart of his offer is a transfer of power out of Whitehall to local communities. Key to that is a new No 10 North hub in Manchester, which the Guardian revealed would be run by his former chief executive in Manchester, with a remit to redistribute power across the regions. Rather than local areas applying to Whitehall for powers, sweeping new powers – including on tax, skills and industry – would be devolved by default. Burnham also nodded to a German‑style Basic Law, a statutory right to equal living standards, an idea he had mooted in his book Head North.
His plans include a long‑term ambition for greater public control of essential services such as water, housing, energy and transport to help curb the cost of living. He promised the biggest council housing building programme since the postwar period, noting that Britain has lost almost 1.5m council homes since the 1980s and around the same number of people are on housing waiting lists. A high street “renaissance” would come through reform of business rates, and the education system – too focused on the university route, he said – would be rebalanced to put academic and technical courses on an equal footing.
Burnham, who has spent less than three days in Westminster since being re‑elected, described the atmosphere he encountered there as “more fragmented, disjointed than the one I left, and, frankly, unhappier”. He signalled a different approach from Keir Starmer, whose handling of the parliamentary party is widely seen as one of No 10’s gravest errors. Burnham promised he would not be “using the whip system to create fear or close down debate”, though he stopped short of abolishing it. He also suggested he wanted to end the adversarial system in the civil service.
He sought to reassure that his programme was backed by the “stability that comes from sound public finances” and the discipline of Rachel Reeves’s fiscal rules – after he had suggested last year the UK was “in hock” to bond markets. But he said he would not announce key cabinet positions until he was closer to power, urging people to ignore “wild speculation” over his pick for chancellor, which would give the clearest indication yet about his economic trajectory. Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, is thought to be favourite.