Speaking after his first day at the new No 10 North in Manchester, Mr Burnham ruled out calling a general election as it would “postpone the essential work” he’s doing in his new job
Andy Burnham has ruled out calling a general election. The new Prime Minister said he would stick to Labour’s 2024 manifesto and that holding a snap poll now would “postpone that essential work“.
Speaking after his first day at the new No 10 North in Manchester, he ruled out calling a general election. He said: “No I’m not. I don’t think that is right. We live in a parliamentary democracy. There was a manifesto in 2024. I’m sticking to that manifesto.
“I’m bringing forward my version but it is still within that manifesto. I just think that we need to focus on making the country work.
“That is the biggest priority right now. A general election would postpone that essential work. I’m also trying to do politics differently, as I did when I was mayor of Greater Manchester.”
After spending the day with government ministers and regional mayors at Heron House in Manchester city centre, Mr Burnham stepped outside for a moment to massive cheers from the public.
Speaking exclusively to the Manchester Evening News afterwards, Mr Burnham said it was “lovely” being back in the city, adding: “People were just great, as ever.”
Mr Burnham is set on splitting his time between 10 Downing Street in London and its northern equivalent. He defended the cost of setting up No10 North and hit back at critics who called the project a “gimmick”.
He added: “We all spend so much money going to London all the time, and that’s the way it’s always been. We all have to buy train tickets. We all have to go down to London. Now I can come and meet people from across the country in Manchester, it saves a lot of expense.
“Is it a gimmick? Well, the fact that I was there today with the Chancellor, the cabinet secretary, the First Secretary of State, the Transport Secretary – a large part of the government was there in Manchester with me today.
“And the fact of us being there, taking decisions there, just means that we’re rebalancing power in the country aren’t we? And the benefits that will fall to Manchester are massive.
“But it’s about No 10 North taking power out of Whitehall and putting it into all parts of the country. That’s its job. People should not underestimate the scale of what we’re doing.
”The good news is that the civil service is really strongly buying it. I think they realised that what we’ve been doing hasn’t been working as a country. We’re not where we should be.”
Mr Burnham was told to “open his eyes” to rough sleeping in Manchester on Friday after promising to end it across England in his first speech as PM outside Downing Street on Monday.
He made a similar pledge when he became Mayor of Greater Manchester in 2017 and while there were initially improvements, data shows rough sleeping in the region is rising again in recent years, prompting the question how he could achieve it nationwide.
He said: “Well it’s a good question and a fair one. And what I would say to that is, obviously, a Bed Every Night scheme still runs and rough sleeping is significantly down on where it was when I came in as mayor.
“But what I discovered was that we couldn’t do what I wanted to do when we were the only area doing what we were doing.”
Asked about his reflection on his first week on the job, he admitted the top role is ‘relentless in terms of the waves of things that come at you’, but added: “I love the job.
“You can’t ever prepare for it because you can’t ever know what it’s like until you do it, but… I’m getting used to it very quickly because you have to. So I’m in at the deep end, but I’ve started swimming and I’ve enjoyed it so far.”
Mr Burnham twice stood for the Labour leadership – in 2010 and 2015 – and lost out. Finally, this year, it was third time lucky for the new Makerfield MP.
And he said it was worth the wait, adding: “I’m better now as a politician than I would have been.
“Manchester made me. My time in Manchester… it gave me the ability to really find what I’m about and, you know, be confident in that and, you know, connect with people.“