Rewiring Britain: The Andy Burnham Project
“The change we are planning will be the biggest change in our lifetimes to the way the country is run.” So said Andy Burnham on 29 June, a month before becoming the new UK Prime Minister.
His vision includes a more streamlined state with a clearer purpose. A new Prime Minister’s office based in Manchester – No.10 North – “will be the conduit through which we redistribute power and resources across the UK. It will coordinate all parts of government, at national and local level, to agree on a long-term economic strategy.”
“It [No.10 North] will be given a mission to strive for equivalent living conditions in all parts of Britain” — a principle borrowed from the German Basic Law, the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany.
“No.10 North will support the regions on three clear tasks: Reform of essential utilities; Re-industrialisation; And the regeneration of places.”
Burnham has pledged to deliver a 10-year plan to renew Britain and reform its troubled politics – a plan that includes ending rough sleeping, reforming education, and tackling social care.
This means breaking with the corrosive ideology of the past 40 years, a period in which Thatcherism, in varying degrees, has shaped, and poisoned, the socio-economic order; fuelling division, promoting greed, and fermenting resentment.
From Mayor to PM
Andy Burnham began his political career in 1994 as a researcher for the late Labour MP Tessa Jowell. He later became a special adviser (1998–2001) within Tony Blair’s government, a role he held until his election as an MP in 2001.
He speaks with sincerity and passion, and comes across as “normal”: someone you could have a coffee with – or a beer – and talk to about anything: rising prices, renting a flat, deciding on a career, music, or football.
From 2017 until becoming MP for Makerfield on 26 June, he was Mayor of Manchester (or “some town”, as Donald Trump ignorantly called it) – a decade in which he built a reputation for competence and empathy that set him apart from the Westminster establishment. After winning the by-election, he was swiftly elected leader of the Labour Party, ousting Sir Keir Starmer, and subsequently, on 20 July, Andy Burnham became Prime Minister.
Upon entering Downing Street, he appointed a cabinet with a record 12 women, and purged many of Starmer’s allies, including some of the most ardent supporters of Israel.
In the UK’s parliamentary system, voters choose a party, not a leader – so, despite far-right carping, there is no constitutional need for a new election.
The current electoral cycle runs until August 2029, giving Burnham and his team just three years to bring about meaningful change. However, he has the latitude to call an early election if he judges it beneficial. Assuming Labour were to win, an early election would free Burnham and his team from Starmer’s restrictive fiscal commitments, potentially creating opportunities for more radical policies.
Clear vision
Despite attempts by opposition parties and right-wing media to present Burnham as someone who “flip-flops,” his priorities have remained consistent for years.
In Head North, co-authored with Steve Rotheram – the Mayor of Liverpool City Region – he lays out a ten-point plan to “rewire Britain”: a written constitution, proportional representation (instead of first-past-the-post), full devolution to regions and nations, two equal education paths (academic and technical), a national social housing programme, a Hillsborough Law – since introduced – and a net-zero re-industrialisation of the North of England, embracing 21st-century industries like data centres, AI, and renewable energy.
He has repeatedly spoken about bringing utilities (water, energy, telecommunications, transport) – all sold off under Thatcher – back under public control. England is the only country with a fully privatised water system, and re-nationalisation has widespread public support – something Burnham has advocated for decades.
What is lacking to date in Burnham’s plans is a foreign policy agenda – one that includes closer ties with the EU (ideally with the aim of re-joining the customs union); a more compassionate immigration policy; a commitment to increase the overseas aid budget, cut under Keir Starmer’s premiership; and a clear, responsible environmental framework.
Beyond Cynicism and Division
Burnham is right to lay most, if not all, of the issues facing Britain at the feet of the ideological dogma of Neo-Liberalism, and its most fervent devotee, Margaret Thatcher (UK Prime Minister 1979–1990). Thatcher famously declared that “there is no such thing as society” – a statement that legitimised selfishness, fed individualism, and eroded community unity.
Since Thatcher – with the relative exception of Tony Blair’s New Labour government (1997–2007), when inequality slowed and investment in public services increased significantly – inequalities of all kinds have grown: income and wealth, education and opportunities, access to culture and employment, and regional disparities.
In relation to the most basic form of inequality – wealth and income – the number of billionaires in the UK has risen from 15 in 1990 to 165 in 2024, one in four of whom, according to the Equality Trust, draw wealth from property and inheritance that contributes nearly nothing to the real economy. At the same time, poverty has increased significantly, with 4.5 million children, or one in three, said to be living in poverty.
Inequality of all kinds is an expression of social injustice and Neo-Liberalism, an extreme form of capitalism that sees everyone as a consumer and everything as an object to be consumed, strengthens every area of inequality.
One of the central tenets of its propaganda – that ‘trickle-down economics’ is the most effective way of spreading wealth – is a complete fantasy; the very opposite is true – wealth flows upwards, with the already rich (people, regions, nations) becoming richer and richer.
Andy Burnham not only recognises this but has openly spoken about it as a fundamental cause of the social and economic misery that millions of people in the UK feel: the lack of hope, and the devastating impact on the nation’s mental health, particularly among under-35s, many of whom cannot find work.
The consequences are stark, particularly in post-industrial towns and cities, where such despair has fuelled racism and division, driving some into the arms of the far right. Whipped up by right-wing lies and distortions, amplified by a compliant media, division has become the dominant political currency in many of these communities – hence Brexit.
Rebuilding Society
Burnham’s entire project is a repudiation of all this, of all that Thatcher and her creed stood for, and stand for. It is an attempt to create greater social justice, to spread opportunities and create economic growth throughout the country – “good growth in every postcode and hope in every heart”; to rebuild the idea of society through a reimagined state that places cooperation, fairness, and collective endeavour at its core.
Redistribution must be at the heart of the Burnham project: redistributing wealth through a tax on assets (one that is not territorially tied) on the very rich, and taxing bank profits; spreading opportunity across the regions via genuine devolution, which gives mayors and councils real control of their area; and creating a culture of innovation and sharing, so that everyone benefits, not just the few.
This means ensuring that secure, well-paid work, good housing, and education choice (as promised) are available in all parts of the country. Such a shift would stand in direct contrast with prevailing attitudes and the current system, which hoards opportunity in the capital, leaves millions in insecure work, fuels division, and enriches a super-rich elite whose wealth contributes nearly nothing to the real economy.
People are crying out for such a shift: for economic and social justice, for better housing, for good, well-paid work, and for broad-based inclusive education.
Tangible change will inevitably take time, but the shift in tone and approach already seen from Burnham and his government is igniting a spark of hope across the country.
This is a moment of enormous national significance, which should not be underestimated. A chance to reverse decades of state cruelty, neglect, and injustice; to prove that politics and governments, when rooted in principles of goodness, can bring lasting change, improving the lives of the majority of people and creating a kinder society at ease with itself.
Andy Burnham, we wish you well.
‘Britain can’t stop climate change. Let’s just embrace a Mediterranean lifestyle’
This has to be a serious candidate for the most foolish comment ever made publicly by a British newspaper editor. Allister Heath, editor of the Sunday Telegraph, opined:
‘We’ve lost the war against global warming – so we should ditch net zero and learn to handle hot weather.’
One might wonder which trench Heath occupied in the ‘war against global warming,’ given that the Telegraph titles have spent decades in the climate-denial camp.
From his privileged position of comfort and wealth, he added:
‘Yes, climate change will inflict many well-rehearsed costs on Britain, and there will be plenty of losers, but it is pointless seeking to prevent the inevitable.’
And:
‘It’s time to accept this sobering reality, cut our losses, cease tilting at (and building) windmills, ditch the despicable con that is net zero, and learn to cope with, and whenever possible, even enjoy, a warmer, drier, more volatile Mediterranean climate, if that is indeed to be our fate.’
Capitalism, the very system of planet-devouring economics that brought us here, will, Heath confidently proclaimed, ‘drive down emissions, when the time and, crucially, price are right.’
He continued:
‘Without minimising the severe downsides of global warming, especially on some [sic] poorer nations, many in Britain would enjoy the kind of warmer climate predicted by modellers… construct more pools…plant more Mediterranean vegetation.’
Jason Hickel, an economics anthropologist professor at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology in Barcelona, noted of Heath’s article:
‘This grotesque headline is from the Telegraph. 3,000 people in Britain have been killed in heatwaves this year so far. 20,000 in Europe.
‘Even if Britain did get to “embrace Mediterranean life”, what about the actual Mediterranean, what do they get to embrace? What about India?’
Hickel added:
‘The indifference of the British elite toward mass suffering is astonishing.’
As for ‘the despicable con that is net zero’, it is a basic law of physics that to stop global warming, humanity has to cut net emissions of global-warming gases to zero. James Hansen, the NASA scientist who sounded the climate alarm to US Congress in 1988, said three years ago that ‘we are damned fools’ for not acting upon warnings over the climate crisis. According to Hansen, there is a huge amount of global heating ‘in the pipeline’ because of the continued burning of fossil fuels. Moreover, he argued, the Earth is ‘very sensitive’ to the impacts of this; far more sensitive than the best estimates presented by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
He said:
‘We are beginning to suffer the effect of our Faustian bargain [in burning fossil fuels]. That is why the rate of global warming is accelerating.’
Hansen added:
‘We are in the early phase of a climate emergency. Such acceleration is dangerous in a climate system that is already far out of equilibrium.’
A new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research shows that global warming has accelerated sharply since 2015. Stefan Rahmstorf, one of the study’s co-authors, warns that:
‘How quickly the Earth continues to warm ultimately depends on how rapidly we reduce global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels to zero.’
In his Telegraph piece, Heath adopted a classic diversionary tactic: blame China and growing nations of the Global South:
‘All of our efforts at carbon reduction (and those of the European Union) have been offset many times over by the increase in Chinese emissions; Britain could return to the stone age and cut our GDP to zero, and it would still make only a trivial difference.’
He continued:
‘Even a global government would not have enforced net zero. Forget worthless treaties: such a body would have been controlled not by Western eco-warriors but by a coalition of Chinese, Russian, Indian, African and South American powers desperate for growth.’
Heath neglects to mention the great strides that China, for example, is taking in boosting its renewable energy capacity and decarbonising its economy. Moreover, many climate scientists disagree with cynical attempts to whitewash Britain’s historical responsibility for global warming since the Industrial Revolution.
Dr Ella Gilbert, a climate scientist and board member of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, a non-profit UK organisation conducting independent research and analysis on energy and climate, said:
‘The climate crisis is a global problem and every country should be acting to reduce emissions and build a greener global economy, especially those with the largest historical responsibility, like the UK. The climate doesn’t care where carbon comes from – whether [it’s] from multiple countries responsible for smaller proportions of emissions, or China.’
She added:
‘The UK may account for just 1% of current global emissions, but we’re responsible for 100% of our own emissions, and we have the opportunity to show global leadership by bringing them down.’
While Heath pines for a mythical Mediterranean lifestyle, soaking up sunshine and sangria by his pool, in the real world the Mediterranean will increasingly suffer ever more intense and persistent heatwaves of over 40C, with extensive wildfires forcing people to flee from their homes. In Britain, the hard reality is that we could face food shortages this year after severe droughts in parts of England, as well as climate-driven crop failures in major importing countries.
Heath’s article suffered such a severe public backlash that the original title of:
‘Britain can’t stop climate change. Let’s just embrace a Mediterranean lifestyle’
was later changed to:
‘We’ve lost the war against climate change. Time to scrap net zero’
One of our X followers asked if we could fathom Heath’s mindset. We pointed out the famous dictum by the US writer Upton Sinclair:
‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.’
Meanwhile, Andy Burnham, the putative saviour of the genocide-participating Labour government, has maintained a stoic silence over the summer’s European wildfires and wider climate breakdown. Instead, he has promised he will take a ‘pragmatic’ approach to oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.
The dictionary tells us ‘pragmatic’ means: ‘dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations’. There is, of course, nothing ‘sensible’, ‘realistic’ or ‘practical’ about burning yet more oil and gas, raising carbon emissions and global temperatures, and leading to ever-greater climate emergency death tolls.
Burnham says that:
‘There is a resource there [in the North Sea]. When people are struggling, we can’t ignore that.’
He would like us to believe that being ‘pragmatic’ is about helping the ordinary man and woman in the street, not the billionaire oil giants like Shell who have just posted profits of £7.37 billion for the April-to-June period, double last year.
Zack Polanski, the leader of the Green party in England and Wales, condemned Burnham’s comments:
‘Allowing new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea will worsen the climate breakdown, putting more lives at risk and doing untold damage to our economy. It’s not too late for Burnham to do the right thing and commit to leaving dangerous fossil fuels in the ground.’
Compare Burnham’s version of reality with that described a few years ago by Noam Chomsky:
‘I don’t know what word in the language – I can’t find one – that applies to people of that kind, who are willing to sacrifice the literal – the existence of organised human life, not in the distant future, so they can put a few more dollars in highly overstuffed pockets. The word “evil” doesn’t begin to approach it.’
