{"id":697927,"date":"2026-07-18T05:49:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T05:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/697927\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T05:49:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T05:49:14","slug":"andy-burnham-britain-hopes-this-former-mayor-will-save-its-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/697927\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Burnham: Britain hopes this former mayor will save its economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Manchester, England\u00a0\u2014\u00a0\n <\/p>\n

\n Britain badly needs its mojo back. Its economy is struggling, public services are strained and improvements in living standards have slowed to a crawl in recent decades. Political instability is the new normal<\/a>, and the national mood is bleak.\n <\/p>\n

\n Could a healthy dose of hope from Andy Burnham<\/a> be the antidote?\n <\/p>\n

\n The former mayor of Greater Manchester, in the northwest of England, Burnham will become the United Kingdom\u2019s seventh prime minister in a decade<\/a> on Monday after replacing Keir Starmer as leader of the ruling Labour Party.\n <\/p>\n

\n He has promised the country \u201ca new era of possibility.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n While his predecessor lacked charisma, Burnham is a natural communicator with an easy-going vibe and a gift for galvanizing people. He is likeable and funny \u2014 in a \u201cdad jokes\u201d kind of way \u2014 and his smart-casual fashion choices make him relatable.\n <\/p>\n

\"Andy<\/p>\n

\n He is also an experienced politician, having been a member of parliament and a cabinet minister for many years before trading London for Manchester in 2017. Now, he wants to bring \u201cManchesterism\u201d \u2014 his brand of business-friendly, locally empowered social democracy \u2014 to the British capital and the rest of the UK.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI am going to give Britain the circuit breaker it needs,\u201d he said in a speech last month, as he launched his third bid in the past 16 years for leadership of the Labour Party.\n <\/p>\n

\n As mayor of Greater Manchester for nine years, Burnham oversaw a city region whose economy has grown at roughly twice the rate<\/a> of the country as a whole.\n <\/p>\n

\n The city is \u201cunrecognizable\u201d from the one that Lucy Ellison, a 33-year-old caf\u00e9 manager, grew up in. She moved back two years ago after working in hospitality in the United States and Amsterdam for 12 years.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt feels like a different city,\u201d she told CNN, mentioning the \u201cquirky wine shops and independent bakeries we never used to have.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Emma<\/p>\n

\n Wine bars, specialty coffee shops and upmarket caf\u00e9s now proliferate in a city with a distinctly optimistic and ambitious energy. Last month, Cond\u00e9 Nast Traveller<\/a> named Manchester the UK\u2019s \u201cbrightest foodie destination.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n A bustling hospitality scene is part of the reason why Hip Pop, a local soda and kombucha brand, has thrived. Co-founder Emma Thackray started the company in her kitchen in 2019, selling at markets in the north of England.\n <\/p>\n

\n The brand is now stocked by most major UK supermarkets and sold in several other European countries. Thackray wants to \u201cbuild a global brand, from the heart of Manchester,\u201d she told CNN, as she enthused about the many positive changes in the city where she was a university student more than two decades ago.\n <\/p>\n

\n On a street downtown called Deansgate, local artist Helen Davies, 32, sits in a shop front working on a collection of paintings dubbed \u201cLove Notes to Manchester,\u201d an ode to a place she \u201ccontinues to fall for,\u201d according to a writeup in the window.\n <\/p>\n

\n Nearby, brightly painted steps lead to Deansgate Mews, where an eclectic mix of eateries can be found. A youthful clientele enjoys lunch in the sunshine or types away busily on laptops, part of a growing cohort of young workers who have moved to the city in recent years, many from London.\n <\/p>\n

\"Canal<\/p>\n

\n Manchester is more affordable than London and still offers high-quality restaurants, a vibrant night-life and top-notch arts and culture.\n <\/p>\n

\n About a 10-minute walk from Deansgate Mews, Aviva Studios \u2014 an enormous cultural venue that opened in 2023 \u2014 is currently hosting a major new exhibition by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. Aviva is the UK\u2019s largest investment in a cultural project since London\u2019s Tate Modern, an art gallery that opened at the turn of the century.\n <\/p>\n

\n Fraser Millward is familiar with both venues, having left a 20-year career in London\u2019s theater and live events industry in 2021 to join the organization that runs Aviva, Factory International, as a technician.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cManchester is something else,\u201d he told CNN. \u201cIt\u2019s got an energy about it that\u2019s unlike anything else in the UK. It\u2019s got a really exciting buzz.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n Manchester wasn\u2019t always this way. A once mighty metropolis at the heart of Britain\u2019s industrial revolution in the 19th century, the city was in \u201calmost terminal decline\u201d by the 1980s, said Richard Leese, who led Manchester City Council from 1996 until 2021.\n <\/p>\n

\n Its decades-long transformation was driven by a long-term strategic plan that involved partnerships between business and government to drive investment in infrastructure, skills and education, Leese told CNN. A major reconstruction<\/a> of the city center was undertaken after a bomb set off by the Irish Republican Army in 1996 damaged many buildings.\n <\/p>\n

\"Then-Manchester<\/p>\n

\n Unlike the country as a whole, Manchester has also had stable leadership, with Labour enjoying an overwhelming majority in local government for much of that period, allowing it to consistently drive change.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cOne of the things that Manchester has really proven in cultural policy and other areas is that longer-term thinking is essential,\u201d said John McGrath, the chief executive of Factory International.\n <\/p>\n

\n Now, Manchester attracts more overseas investment than any British city outside London and is ranked among Europe\u2019s top 15 cities for investment, according to EY and Invest Manchester<\/a>, a regional agency.\n <\/p>\n

\n It has made the most of its industrial heritage, repurposing old warehouses and factories into modern apartment blocks and co-work spaces. Factory International also pays tribute to the city\u2019s cultural history, taking its name from Factory Records. The seminal former record label, based in Manchester, launched the likes of band Joy Division and ran the famous Ha\u00e7ienda nightclub, on the site of which stand apartments<\/a> today.\n <\/p>\n

\n While the origins of Manchester\u2019s renaissance pre-date Burnham by about 30 years, he is widely credited with dramatically improving the city\u2019s previously patchy public transport services, a legacy epitomized by the network of yellow \u201cBee\u201d buses. He has also not interfered with a winning formula and has played a part in boosting investment<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n Not all parts of Greater Manchester have shared in the city\u2019s success, however. The region continues to have high \u201crelatively levels of deprivation compared to the national average,\u201d according to a local government report.\n <\/p>\n

\n And while Manchester\u2019s story shows that change is possible, it also demonstrates that change takes time to deliver. Burnham may have only three years before the next general election, which must be held by mid-August 2029, raising doubts about whether he will have long enough to tackle the country\u2019s myriad economic problems \u2014 not least a ballooning welfare bill and growing youth unemployment.\n <\/p>\n

\n His ability to implement policies aimed at boosting economic growth \u2014 such as reindustrialization, building more social housing and taking greater public control of utilities \u2014 will also be severely constrained by weak government finances.\n <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n Burnham, for his part, has seen firsthand how change is wrought, giving him a steely reserve to fight for it. His decision to take control of Manchester\u2019s bus network, for example, faced significant resistance from private bus companies and took several years to accomplish.\n <\/p>\n

\n Manchester, meanwhile, faced enormous challenges in its comeback, from high levels of poverty and unemployment to poor education and crumbling infrastructure. Those fortunes slowly shifted through the consistent efforts of \u201cseveral thousand people,\u201d according to Leese.\n <\/p>\n

\n He highlights another crucial element in the city\u2019s success: the fact that it has \u201cregained its self-confidence.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cCities that believe they can do things, do do things,\u201d he added. Leese said the current government under Starmer and finance minister Rachel Reeves were elected \u201cwith the promise of a bright new future,\u201d but then \u201cspent six months telling everybody how bad everything was.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Economists have likewise said the government did not capitalize on the wave of optimism felt after the 2024 election, a missed opportunity which weakened business confidence and impacted investment.\n <\/p>\n

\n Still, while Burnham\u2019s outlook is far more hopeful, \u201cdetails are scarce,\u201d said Paul Dales, chief UK economist at Capital Economics. \u201cWe are not encouraged by Burnham\u2019s economic plan,\u201d he wrote in a note<\/a> this week, citing Burnham\u2019s \u201cnarrow\u201d diagnosis of the UK\u2019s economic challenges.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cHe thinks the problem is that local governments don\u2019t have enough power and the overall government does not have enough control,\u201d Dales said. \u201cBut these are only small contributing factors to the big issues of low investment and low savings resulting in low productivity growth, and the size and quality of the labour force not growing fast enough.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Leese, on the other hand, argues that Burnham\u2019s upbeat approach will pay dividends. \u201cHis agenda will be about messages of hope and a positive future, which is not just hot air, it\u2019s an essential element of giving people some confidence that we do have a better future,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n

\n A weary Britain is counting on it.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manchester, England\u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Britain badly needs its mojo back. Its economy is struggling, public services are strained and improvements…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-697927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}