The North is really sick and tired of being pushed around

A couple of years after moving to the North West of England – from London, where I’d lived for two decades – I sat and watched a giddy lobby journalist gallop behind an MP live on telly, shouting his name to try and get his attention.

- TERRI WHITE

The day before, I’d been in one of Greater Manchester’s most deprived neighbourhoods meeting mums forced to use food banks for a child poverty documentary. And as that six-figureearning reporter chased a nigh-on six-figure-earning politician through the parliamentary lobby for comment on the latest silly SW1 scandal (the romp only missing a Benny Hill soundtrack), it struck me just how disconnected Westminster was from, well, everywhere else. A different bloody planet, mate.

It’s a frustration that drives our PM-in-waiting, Andy Burnham. His three-term mayorship of Greater Manchester was characterised by his willingness to scrap for his city-region. And his belief in fiscal and policy-making devolution to not just empower such places, but economically turbocharge them.

So, his pitch yesterday, which sets out a vision for regionalism, outlining a devolution agenda that proposes what has been dubbed the largest transfer of power away from London in modern British history, was deeply unsurprising and entirely radical.

He pledged ‐good growth in every postcode‑ and announced plans to establish a ‐No 10 North‑ in Manchester to coordinate economic policy outside of Whitehall. Cue an outraged response from the political and media class. Guys, power-hoarding London is not happy!

Comments and bleating analysis have ranged from the ridiculous to the rabid. It'll deepen the North-South divide! It'll alienate voters who hate Manchester! What about the seaside? What about the foreign leaders wanting an Insta-worthy picture outside 10 Downing Street? Don’t civil servants have enough to put up with, never mind making them go – gip – up North?