Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
Britain has opened a new centre of political power outside London, with Prime Minister Andy Burnham setting up “No. 10 North” in Manchester. Burnham, who was mayor of Greater Manchester before returning to national politics, says the office is both a symbol and a working base for his plan to shift power away from Westminster and spread economic growth more evenly across the country.
advertisement
Burnham plans to work from the Manchester office at least one day a week, alongside full-time aides, experts and civil servants. He says the move is part of a wider effort to give local leaders more control. Critics have called it a gimmick, but Burnham says it marks a deeper change in how government works.
Calling it “a North Pole that balances the South Pole” of Westminster politics in London, Burnham said on Friday: “It’s not another office. It is a fundamental change to the way the country thinks about growth and investment.” The move is unusual in British politics. While earlier prime ministers have spent time in their constituencies or at the Chequers country retreat, none in living memory has run a large-scale office outside London.
Burnham believes Manchester’s record offers a model for the rest of Britain and a way to avoid the problems that brought down his predecessor, Keir Starmer, who stepped down in July after two years in office following missteps, policy U-turns and his failure to get Britain’s sluggish economy growing. During nine years as Manchester mayor, Burnham was praised for taking on central government on behalf of the city, earning the nickname King of the North. He backed what has been called “Manchesterism”, a business-friendly form of socialism that uses private investment for major projects while giving communities more control over housing, transport, training and public services. During his time as mayor, Manchester city centre grew rapidly, with skyscrapers rising on vacant sites, service industries expanding and a municipally run network of bright yellow buses and trams spreading across the city.
Burnham now wants to apply that approach across Britain, using No. 10 North as the base for moving wealth and opportunity towards areas hit by factory closures, job losses and young people leaving. As a first step, he announced on Friday that mayors would keep a larger share of income and business tax raised in their areas, describing it as the “biggest transfer of power, funding and responsibility from Westminster in a generation”. Many details, including how much extra money mayors will receive, have not yet been announced. Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, said Burnham’s early moves suggest “he does mean business in terms of changing the overall mechanics of government”. Ford added: “We have one of the most centralised countries out of all developed democracies in terms of how much money and decision-making power gets hoovered into the centre, how little there is for the provinces to do. He does seem quite determined to change that, but that’s a huge job.” Critics, however, say Manchester’s growth has not reached all parts of the area, and that the anti-immigration party Reform UK has benefited from public discontent.
No. 10 North is expected to get a new headquarters in future as part of an inner-city redevelopment project, but for now it is in a low-rise building shared with a chain pub, a civic register office and a branch of the cyber-intelligence agency GCHQ. Supporters say the office already feels different from Downing Street. Rose Marley, chief executive of Cooperatives UK, said after visiting for a meeting: “It was so refreshing that it wasn’t us having to travel to London all the time. Westminster might start realising how bad the trains are and how much it costs when they have to come back the other way.” Marley, who advised Burnham when he was mayor, compared it with the effect of the BBC moving some production to Salford. “For the first time ever, the likes of me were asked onto the BBC sofa,” she said. “It meant voices like mine started to appear on the sofa and a diversity of thinking started to be heard. The voices that are furthest away from what you’re saying and what you believe, that’s when you need to listen the most. Westminster really does need to listen to all the parts of the country.”
Many people in Manchester support the idea of the city having greater control over its own affairs. Sam Turner, a nursing lecturer, said: “I think it makes sense. Because the north is very different to the south, there are different house values, there’s different land values, with different salaries.” But Ford said Burnham would have to prove the project is for the whole country and not only for Manchester. “You could go to Liverpool down the road, or Leeds, or Sheffield and they’ll say, Well, you know, an office in Manchester isn’t necessarily an office for us,” he said. Lesley Lebbon, who was visiting Manchester from Newmarket in eastern England, said No. 10 North was “a start”, but added that other regions also needed attention and that she would like to see “more No. 10s, maybe an East and a West No. 10”. She added: “I like the idea of what No. 10 North represents. I think any progress has got to be better than no progress.” In that sense, No. 10 North is both Burnham’s first major political signal and a test of whether he can spread power beyond Manchester and beyond Westminster.
With PTI Inputs
– Ends
SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
