‘As Mayor, his focus was never on Westminster’s obsessions. It was on the things that matter to ordinary people’, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region Steve Rotheram writes
Ten years ago, Andy Burnham made one of the biggest decisions of his life over a pint.
We were sitting together in a pub in London, talking about politics, the future of the North and where Labour needed to go next. At the time, walking away from Westminster to become Mayor of Greater Manchester looked like a massive gamble. It was.
Plenty thought he was stepping off the path to the very top, asking how leading the devolution agenda could ever become more important than anything in Westminster.
Last week, we shared another pint. Only this time Andy had just been elected back to Parliament and was preparing to become Prime Minister. Life has a funny way of coming full circle.
Standing outside Number 10 with my first grandchild in my arms, listening to Andy deliver his first address to the nation, it was impossible not to think back to that conversation in a London pub ten years earlier. At the time, becoming a Mayor looked like the end of his Westminster career. In reality, it turned out to be the making of him.
A lot has changed in that intervening decade. Andy has changed (all but his haircut!). The country has changed. Politics has changed beyond recognition. But that decade has prepared him perfectly for the job ahead.
What makes Andy different is that he has seen our political system from both sides.
He knows what it’s like to sit around the Cabinet table and wrestle with the pressures of national government. But he has also spent the last decade on the receiving end of decisions made in Westminster, fighting for Greater Manchester and seeing first-hand where the system works and where it falls short.
The Andy Burnham returning to Westminster is not the same politician who left it.
As Mayor, his focus was never on Westminster’s obsessions. It was on the things that matter to ordinary people: the cost of getting to work, whether public transport is reliable, whether young people have opportunities close to home and whether local communities have any real say over their future.
He fought to bring buses back under public control because he believed passengers deserved a service that worked for them, not shareholders.
He championed affordable fares because he understood that transport isn’t a luxury; it’s how people access jobs, education and opportunity.
And he pushed for more power to be handed to local communities because he knows local people understand their own challenges better than anyone sitting behind a desk in Whitehall.
What has never changed is his authenticity.
Whether he was a Cabinet Minister, Mayor or now Prime Minister, Andy has always been comfortable in his own skin. People know where they stand with him.
The country voted for change in 2024 because people wanted a government that understood their lives and could make things better. Andy has spent the last decade proving those things are deliverable, not just slogans.
Most Prime Ministers spend their careers climbing the Westminster ladder. Andy stepped off it, learned how government decisions affect people in the real world, and returned better equipped for the country’s top job.
The challenges ahead are enormous. But if anyone is equipped to reconnect government with the people it serves, it’s Andy.