Andy Burnham, who is likely to be Britain’s next prime minister, on Monday outlined his plan for government, promising to raise living standards, shift power from London to Britain’s other cities, and move part of the Downing Street operation to the north of England.
Mr. Burnham spent nine years as mayor of Greater Manchester before being elected to Parliament earlier this month and becoming the lead contender to succeed Keir Starmer, who has announced his resignation as Labour Party leader and prime minister.
So far, no other candidate has declared for the race to succeed Mr. Starmer, and with the prospect that Mr. Burnham could enter Downing Street in three weeks, his words are being watched closely.
In an upbeat speech in Manchester, Mr. Burnham called for a 10-year mission to raise living standards through re-industrialization, a big program of new housing projects, changes to the welfare system and greater state control over some main utilities.
“I am going to give Britain the circuit-breaker it needs,” said Mr. Burnham, adding that Britain was “one of the most over-centralized countries in the world” and that the political system was “broken.”
He promised the “biggest rebalancing of power our country has ever seen.”
That, he added, would include “public intervention where necessary to set higher ambitions ” and a rejection of the “trickle-down” theory of economics reliant on the markets to distribute economic good.
To a burst of applause from his audience, Mr. Burnham promised that by relocating part of Downing Street, the prime minister’s traditional office, to Manchester, he would create a unit — “No. 10 North” — that would become the “nerve center of a rewired Britain.”
At the heart of his vision is a proposal to give more power to mayors, handing them greater control over budgets for housing projects, welfare and education. Britain’s government and economy is more centralized that many other nations in Europe, with wealth and power concentrated in London and southeast England.
Mr. Burnham said he wanted to put decision-making in the hands of regions and local communities, promising “good growth” in every postal code of the country and “hope in every heart,” concluding: “Imagine no more; let’s make it happen.”
Many specifics of Mr. Burnham’s economic agenda are not yet clear, however. He caused concern in financial markets last year when he said that he did not wish to be “in hock to the bond markets” — words he has subsequently claimed were misinterpreted.
On Monday Mr. Burnham sought to offer reassurance to those critics, explicitly promising to respect the “discipline of our fiscal rules,” which dictate that the day-to-day costs of government must be met by its revenues by 2030, at which point borrowing would be used only to invest for the longer term.
One central question is who would be chancellor of the Exchequer if Mr. Burnham becomes prime minister, but he said he would not announce this until the leadership process was complete.
On Monday political opponents singled out his approach to economic policy for criticism.
“If you look under the hood of Andy Burnham’s proposals, you will find at their core a mistaken belief, the belief that is it government that creates growth,” Kemi Badenoch, leader of the main opposition Conservative Party, said in a speech, “It is not, it is business that creates growth.”
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