Andy Burnham: The Pretender King of Devolution

Why the Mayor of Manchester remains Labour’s loudest outsider and the face of Britain’s half-built local democracy?

Andy Burnham: Pretender King?

Andy Burnham was never really serious about leading the Labour Party. It was theatre, a tease, the kind of game politicians play when they want to see how the wind blows. He knew the headlines it would stir, knew the speculation would hum around him like static, and knew full well that the path to the leadership was blocked before he even set foot on it.

To become leader, he first needed to be in Parliament. And he isn’t. That meant finding a seat, which sounds straightforward until you look at how carefully Labour guards its boundaries. A few MPs might have stepped aside for him, one perhaps eyeing the Lords, another ready to trade their Westminster seat for his mayoral role in Greater Manchester, and maybe a third simply weary of the whole business. But even if one of them had made way, who controls the selection process?

In Labour’s case, that power sits squarely with Keir Starmer. And there is no universe in which Starmer would allow Burnham to stroll back into the Commons. Not when he has spent years tightening his grip on the party, pruning out anyone who looks remotely independent or popular enough to cause trouble. Letting Burnham return would be like handing the keys to the castle to a rival prince.

Even if he did find a seat, there is the small matter of winning it. The constituencies that might have suited him are now Reform UK hunting grounds. Those voters are restless, angry, and ready to punish anyone flying a red flag. Reform would throw every ounce of energy and cash at defeating him, and Burnham could easily end up humbled on election night.

Inside Westminster, the problem runs deeper. The Parliamentary Labour Party is wary of him. They see the charisma, the slick media presence, the easy northern charm, and they bristle. For all his ministerial experience and past loyalty, Burnham lacks the one thing every leadership contender needs: a loyal bloc of MPs. Among those who actually cast the votes that decide Labour’s next leader, he is an outsider.

So no, he was not plotting a coup. The whole episode felt more like political mischief than ambition. Burnham is smart enough to know the difference between a serious campaign and a story that keeps his name alive. He was poking the party machine with a stick, and the media did what it always does. It bit.

Yet we should be fair. Andy Burnham has done some genuine good in Manchester. His leadership during the pandemic gave northern England a voice when Whitehall was deaf to regional pain. His push for better housing, transport, and social policy has helped shape a new kind of local politics. In many ways, he has become the face of English devolution, the poster boy for the idea that city mayors can carry moral and political weight.

But there is a limit to what any mayor can achieve, even one with Burnham’s flair. The gulf between being the voice of the people and being the people’s prime minister is wide and deep. Burnham has carved out his territory, but it remains a local one. He is not the King of the North, as some once called him, but rather the emblem of what municipal power now means in Britain.

And while he talks about transparency and accountability, the figures from his own office invite questions. That’s where Nigel Hastilow comes in, the journalist who unearthed the numbers. Hastilow, a former editor of the Birmingham Post in the days when it was a daily broadsheet and a genuinely respected paper, filed a freedom of information request that revealed a curious pattern in Burnham’s spending.

Between April and June this year, Burnham’s office spent £12,765 with Prestige Chauffeurs Ltd. That works out to roughly £4,000 a month on cars. Earlier quarters were much the same, £9,315 here, £12,416 there, and £11,940 the year before. Across four non-consecutive quarters, the total hit £44,711.

Of course, Greater Manchester is a big place, and the mayor’s diary is packed with events, ceremonies, and meetings. But £44,711 is still a fair few miles of leather upholstery. More interestingly, recent transparency reports from the Mayor’s Office have been trimmed back to show only £333,000 in legal liabilities from a total spend of £205 million. The rest is hazy, tidied away under broad categories.

Then there are the other outgoings. Greater Manchester Combined Authority has spent heavily with a range of organisations. £392,000 went to Change Grow Live, £148,000 to We Are With You, £195,000 to Turning Point, and £46,000 to Squire Patton Boggs, a global law firm of some repute. There is no suggestion of wrongdoing, but there is the sense of a civic culture where money trickles endlessly through respectable channels and very little seems to change.

This is the irony of Burnham’s reign. He has become the living symbol of the devolution era, and with that comes both strength and stagnation. He talks like a challenger, spends like an incumbent, and governs within the limits of a system that still takes its orders from Westminster.

Yet for all that, he has achieved what few others have. He has made the role of mayor matter. He has shown that a local politician can dominate the national conversation, can shape the mood beyond the boundaries of their city, and can speak to a wider hunger for power closer to home.

He is not the King of the North, and never was, but he is something more realistic and perhaps more important. Andy Burnham is the model of the modern British mayor: articulate, ambitious, visible, but hemmed in by the limits of the job itself. He represents both the potential and the frustration of devolved politics.

A man who rose high, stayed visible, and built a platform from which others will one day jump higher. The Pretender King, perhaps, but also the proof that local power in this country is finally learning how to speak with its own voice.