It was all just a bit of theatre for him
Andy Burnham was never really serious about leading the Labour Party. It was all a bit of theatre, a bit of tease. He knew how the game works and how the headlines would play.
To lead, you first have to sit in Parliament, and he doesn’t. A few MPs might have stepped aside, one possibly eyeing the Lords, another trading Westminster for his mayoral role in Greater Manchester. But even if a seat opened up, Keir Starmer holds the keys. And there’s no world in which Starmer lets Burnham quietly back into the Commons.
Reform circling like sharks
Even if he did, he’d face Reform UK circling like sharks around potential seats. And within the Parliamentary Labour Party, Burnham is viewed with suspicion. They see his polish and populism, and they bristle. He’s not their man.
So no, this wasn’t a coup. It was a bit of northern mischief, a reminder that the regions still have pulse and pride.
But Burnham deserves credit. In Manchester, he’s done solid work. During the pandemic, he gave northern England a voice when Westminster fell silent. He’s stood up for housing, transport, and fairness, and become the face of what English devolution can look like when it actually means something.
Credit to Nigel Hastilow
Yet his own transparency record isn’t spotless. Credit here to Nigel Hastilow, former editor of the Birmingham Post back when it was a proper daily broadsheet, who used a Freedom of Information request to lift the lid on Burnham’s spending.
Between April and June this year, the Mayor’s office spent £12,765 on chauffeur-driven cars, around £4,000 a month, and over £44,000 across four non-consecutive quarters. Greater Manchester Combined Authority has also paid out big sums to charities and consultants — all legitimate perhaps, but all part of a civic culture where money slides easily and results move slowly.
The Pretender King of Devolution
Burnham is no villain. He’s just the face of a system caught between ambition and bureaucracy. Not King of the North, but the symbol of the modern British mayor: articulate, visible and confined by the limits of his job.
For now, he remains Labour’s loudest outsider. The Pretender King of Devolution.
