Burnham promises to steer Britain in a ‘new direction’

‘No 10 for North’ among plans laid out by by PM-in-waiting

- DAVID MADDOX MILLIE COOKE KATE DEVLIN

Andy Burnham promised a ‘new direction’ for Britain and vowed to overhaul the country’s ‘broken’ political system as he sought to lift the spirits of Labour MPs in his first major speech as “prime minister-in-waiting”.

Speaking at the People’s History Museum in Manchester yesterday, the newly elected MP for Makerfield, who now appears to be the only candidate to replace Sir Keir Starmer, laid out a decade-long plan topped with the promise of a “No 10 of the North” - an outpost of 10 Downing Street which he claimed would be “the nerve centre of a rewired Britain”.

Dressed in his trademark dark T-shirt, Mr Burnham pledged to rewrite four decades of “trickle-down” economics, promising to bring UK politics “out of a rut” and drive a devolution agenda which would allow regions and communities to “drive growth in every postcode”.

He said: “Clearly, we cannot go on like this.”

Offering a 10-year mission to transform Britain, he added: “Imagine good growth in every postcode and hope in every heart. And I say it again. Imagine good growth in every postcode and hope in every heart. Well, imagine no more. Let's make it happen.”

He described Westminster as a much more “miserable place” since he left to become Greater Manchester mayor almost a decade ago - blaming Brexit and Covid for its decline and sharing the “frustrations” of “many good MPs” who are “powerless to bring the change their communities need”.