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  "path": "/opinion/andy-burnhams-manchesterism-is-just-tax-and-spend-with-a-northern-accent-william-yarwood",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-29T20:11:08.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.gbnews.com",
  "tags": [
    "Membership",
    "Andy Burnham's big speech was short on hard answers and that should worry us all – Tom Harwood",
    "Here's the reason why white working-class pupils are struggling – Luke Taylor",
    "Andy Burnham isn’t PM yet but he’s already shown us the type of leader he will be - Carole Malone",
    "The GB News Editorial Charter"
  ],
  "textContent": "\n\n\n“I don’t have to sell my soul,” begins I Wanna Be Adored, The Stone Roses’ best-known song.\n\nOften mistaken for a love song, it is really about the dangerous hunger for attention, admiration and even worship.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nGiven Andy Burnham’s rock-star return to Westminster last week, complete with the swagger, the fanfare, and the messiah-like reverence with which Burnham is treated, it is hard to think of a more fitting soundtrack.\n\nThe Stone Roses may be one of his favourite bands, but after his first speech delivered at the People’s History Museum in Manchester, Burnham appeared less interested in being adored and more in being outright canonised as the saviour of both the Labour Party and the country as a whole.\n\nHis focus? Taking the ‘power out of the centre’, decentralisation and bringing ‘good growth in every postcode and hope in every heart’.\n\nAnd while this may appeal to Burnham’s faithful cheerleaders in the room, unfortunately for taxpayers, there was little behind the clichés and political sweet nothings of his speech.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nTRENDING\n\nStories\n\nVideos\n\nYour Say\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nWhat was there was nothing Brits haven’t heard before and was, in many ways, a doubling down on the failed orthodoxies of state interventionism and shuffling around accountability.\n\nThere were promises to “rewire Britain”, vague appeals to hope and endless declarations that the country needed to do politics differently.\n\nAt times, the speech sounded less like a programme for Government and more like a parody of one: under a Burnham administration, local authorities would face a statutory duty to deliver “more good things”, while Westminster would finally be ordered to stop doing “bad things”.\n\nEnough is enough: YES to good things, NO to bad things. NO to arguing, YES to doing things.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nWhile this is little more than nauseating tripe, what was really missing was a serious explanation of how much any of these plans to rewire Britain would cost, who would pay for it, or how a Government led by Burnham would ease the burdens on households and businesses already being taxed to breaking point.\n\nTo be fair, Burnham did say that families needed “breathing space” to cope with rising costs, which sounds reassuring enough.\n\nBut the likelihood that this will materialise in simply more government spending, rather than tax cuts, is a bet I would be willing to lay down.\n\nAfter all, politicians rarely create breathing space by taking less. Their instinct is to borrow more, spend more and then boast about the generosity of programmes funded from money taken out of somebody else’s pocket.\n\n### LATEST DEVELOPMENTS\n\n\n\n\n  * Andy Burnham's big speech was short on hard answers and that should worry us all – Tom Harwood\n  * Here's the reason why white working-class pupils are struggling – Luke Taylor\n  * Andy Burnham isn’t PM yet but he’s already shown us the type of leader he will be - Carole Malone\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nBurnham’s speech gave no reason to indicate to anyone that he would be any different to the tax and spend politicians of years gone by.\n\nHis answer appears to be that the state should play an even larger role in directing the economy and encouraging so-called ‘good growth’.\n\nHis supporters, and indeed Burnham himself, have attempted to package this philosophy as “Manchesterism”, as though giving a stale idea a regional label somehow makes it innovative.\n\nBut in practice, it simply means more meddling in the economy, more spending powers and statutory obligations being dumped on local politicians and quangos, and ultimately less accountability for Burnham himself when he finally gets into Downing Street.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nNow, there is nothing inherently wrong with devolving power. Decisions should often be taken closer to the people affected by them.\n\nBut genuine localism requires local accountability, transparency and responsibility for raising the money being spent.\n\nBurnham’s version risks offering local politicians the power to spend while leaving national taxpayers to pick up the bill or, worse still, forcing local authorities to hike taxes while keeping his hands clean.\n\nManchesterism then appears less like the decentralisation of powers and more like the decentralisation of blame.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nNor should taxpayers be reassured by Burnham’s insistence that the state must become more involved in generating growth.\n\nGovernments do not create sustainable growth by holding conferences, establishing development bodies or producing top-down ten-year plans stuffed with bureaucratic jargon.\n\nBritain’s problem is not that ministers lack sufficient mechanisms for interference.\n\nBusinesses face some of the highest energy costs in the developed world, a punitive tax system, endless regulation, a dysfunctional planning regime and a public sector consuming an ever-growing share of the economy.\n\nCreating another board, fund, strategy or regional authority will not solve those problems.\n\nIt will merely create another layer of officials somewhere to meet and drain taxpayers’ cash, all the while ordinary people struggle beneath the burden imposed by the existing ones.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBurnham must therefore ditch the tired clichés and tell taxpayers what he would actually do.\n\nWould he rule out further tax rises and end the stealth raid caused by frozen thresholds? Would he bring welfare and Whitehall spending under control?\n\nWould he abolish quangos rather than creating new regional bureaucracies? The answer to all of these questions, I predict, will be a resounding no.\n\nThe truth of the matter is that the rock star of Makerfield is a thoroughly conventional tax-and-spend politician whose proposed revolution looks suspiciously like more of the same.\n\nBurnham may want to be adored, but taxpayers should judge him not by the size of the applause or the poetry of his slogans, but by whether he is prepared to let them keep more of their own money.\n\nIf he genuinely wants to give families breathing space, there is a simple place for him to start: get politicians out of their pockets.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n**Our Standards: The GB News Editorial Charter**",
  "title": "Andy Burnham's 'Manchesterism' is just tax-and-spend with a northern accent"
}