Andy Burnham’s new Chancellor is expected to split his or her time between 11 Downing Street and northern England as part of the PM-in-waiting’s devolution push. The Telegraph has more.
The Prime Minister-in-waiting will reportedly order his choice for the Treasury to spend part of their time outside the capital as part of his devolution push.
A source close to Burnham’s team said: “Imagine if the Chancellor spent part of their working week based outside London. It would change their perspective.”
The MP for Makerfield is on course to succeed Sir Keir Starmer on July 20th and work from Manchester at least one day a week as Prime Minister.
Hundreds of Treasury officials have already moved to temporary offices in Darlington under a scheme drawn up by Rishi Sunak when he was Chancellor, with a permanent hub expected to open next year. The Darlington Economic Campus was set up as part of a push to move 22,000 civil service jobs outside of London under the levelling-up agenda pursued by Sunak and Boris Johnson.
Burnham is expected to take a significantly more devolved approach to governing and establish a new No. 10 North in Manchester.
This agenda would extend to his top team of ministers, with Rachel Reeves’s successor likely to spend some of their time working in northern England.
One figure close to talks involving Burnham’s team told the Financial Times: “Darlington needs to go from a Treasury outpost to something people take notice of. That may need a radical change to the Treasury mindset.”
Reeves last week appeared to make a pitch to keep her Treasury job as she lavished praise on Burnham and backed him to replace Sir Keir. However, she is widely expected to be demoted to a more junior role or leave the Cabinet altogether because she is so closely linked to Sir Keir’s administration.
The appointment of Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, as Chancellor is seen as “50/50” by sources close to Burnham.
Miliband has provided both political and economic advice in recent months, although Labour’s union backers are split over his appointment because of his expensive Net Zero agenda.
Worth reading in full.
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Expensive, performative nonsense.
Imagine if Burnham had to spend part of his working week in the South but outside London. He’d realise that the South isn’t full of rich people living in luxury accommodation with 24h public transport. Put him in Jaywick, Hastings, Crawley or Camborne and that would definitely change his perspective.
or Margate
Anti democratic prix. Another communist who will continue to destroy us economically and culturally. And the British voters continues to say ” he seems a nice, sensible bloke”
Expanding the franchise was a really bad idea, especially to women.
So. You think there’s only ‘his’ or ‘her’ do you? What if it’s a two-spirit watsit? Evil right-wing bastards.
🙂
Or an alien like Mad Ed…
What a shallow p.o.v. absurd really.
It’s like the EU being run from both Brussels and Strasbourg has been such a success…
Well the French had to be appeased.
Hmm – that’ll go down like a cup of cold sick I would imagine…
Burnham is a Blairite to his core. Expect numerous eye catching gimmicks to distract attention from the socialist evil being perpetrated.
They could put both number 10 & 11 on the moon and it would still be the same socialist bullcrap!
Can we start a petition to base them on the moon ? I am sure it would be very popular and no doubt Elon would give them a lift.
It has long been my view that all governments do is get in the way anyway. Much better off without the fools.
What a marvellous excuse for jacking up the expenses bill.
It makes me wonder how long ‘working up North’ and HS2 have been planned. Perhaps we should call HS2 the Zil Train?
If this gets seriuos, we’ll probably see a sudden budget item for a HS2 extension!
Because… then Burnham can “create” local make-work jobs in the attendant civil service and be a hero, at taxpayers’ expense.
He talks about re-industrialisation but pen-pushing, and paper shuffling is not an industrial activity.
I wonder how it will be possible to re-industrialise the economy whilst simultaneously de-industrialising it via Net Zero.
Remember the ancient Arabic proverb: ‘However voluptuous the camel’s eyelashes, it is not in charge of the caravan’s direction of travel’
Lovely.
Are there T-shirts for camels?
Love that…!
But if they’re very voluptuous the camel might be worth more than one wife.
How will the House of Commons demand his attention on urgent matters if the PM is regularly out of town. If Burnham travels the world as much as Starmer he won’t have time left for Parliament.
Ditto a Chancellor who frequently works in ‘t north.
as Starmer never answers questions put to him perhaps we should formalise it and abolish PM questions.
Well they could build a Parliament in York and MPs could shuttle back and forth with the Minsters.
Might as well not have PMQs since Two Tier never answered any questions anyway and the Labour Speaker Long Haul Hoyle did nothing about it.
It sounds like he’s imitating the way the EU parliament migrates between Brussels and Strasbourg, Great for running gravy trains and losing accountability, but not for governance.
I think he should move the capital city to Manchester. No wait, Glasgow.
Actually he could do what Brazil, Canada, Australia have done. Split the difference and set up a brand new capital some where.in the middle of England.
Either way, focus on the main problem facing the country: not what the governemnt does but where it does it from. What a genius.
Hold on a sec… Middle of England? How dare you? Middle of UK please!
Ah. The middle of UK is debatable but is most certainly still in England.
According to DDG search assist:
So, now we know where No11 North should be – unless Ed has already covered it in solar panels: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/54%C2%B000'13.1%22N+2%C2%B032'52.3%22W/@54.003644,-2.5504393,355m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m4!3m3!8m2!3d54.003644!4d-2.547859
Professional northerner. It’s like a Monty Python sketch.