Andy Burnham launches mayoral re-election campaign with a favourite fab four tune

For a politician who’s had to convince Greater Manchester he’s not a Liverpudlian lad, it was an odd choice to play ‘Penny Lane’ by The Beatles at Andy Burnham’s campaign launch.

As Paul McCartney’s lyrics echoed through the upstairs of the Salford Lads’ Club, where Burnham launched his bid for a third mayoral term, there was an air of expectation from Labour Party officials that their man will be guaranteed 11 years in power in a month’s time.

Burnham, for his part, says he ‘doesn’t assume anything’ in this race — but past results put him as the heavy favourite in 2024. In the past two polls of 2017 and 2021, Burnham won enough first-round votes to not even require a run-off election, as the supplementary vote system was designed for. This year, it’s a straight first-past-the-post competition.

That confidence is based on his record. He said he’d turn around GMP. Last year, inspectors found it had ‘significantly improved’ three years after being placed in special measures, although more work was needed.

He said he’d integrate buses and trams. The Bee Network launched last year, and two-thirds of buses are now under public control, with the remainder done by early 2025 and commuter trains promised to follow by 2028. But there have been teething problems with bus services, as passengers complain of higher ticket prices on some routes and delays during the changeover.

His next big project is the MBacc, which will give teenagers an ‘equal path’ to the university route going into technical education. With it being a key manifesto point in 2024, its September launch means Burnham will be almost guaranteed to have another notch on his belt.

There have been misses, however. The clean air zone charge in its original form sparked a huge backlash and a major U-turn. Promises to bring in standardised taxi licences over all 10 boroughs had to be abandoned in the face of opposition in Rochdale and Oldham. And a 2017 promise to ‘reinvest the profits from Metrolink towards expanding the network… focusing on radial routes’ hasn’t come to fruition.

Still, the air of confidence around Burnham — even if it’s not one the former Leigh MP shares publicly — remains high.

But that’s a far cry from when he left Parliament seven years ago.

“I think at the time I left Westminster, I remember comments from people of ‘oh that won’t be able to do anything, that won’t last’,” the mayor recalls to the Local Democracy Reporting Service. “Genuinely that’s what people were saying. I think we’ve proved them wrong.”

He goes on: “People are now looking at the mayors and combined authorities as the agents of change, the engine room of the UK economy. That is such a massive change.”

And that’s why Burnham — being pitched to voters as ‘Andy’ alone this election — also believes he’s achieved more in office than he ever expected to. As just two examples, he didn’t expect Greater Manchester’s economy to ‘grow faster than the UK’s’. He didn’t think creating the Bee Network was ‘achievable when I came in’.

That creation stands out in Burnham’s mind as ‘the single biggest act of levelling up in this Parliament’, he claims.

“I think that stands in contrast to Westminster. This is a Parliament where they promised to level up — what have they done? Not much,” he adds. “I think we have brought about the single biggest act of levelling up in this Parliament, which is the creation of the Bee Network. Greater Manchester has done that.”

This year, his pitch to voters is that he’s ‘fixed the fundamentals’ he believes the national government has neglected in the city-region, with good times just around the corner under his leadership. And, with Labour expected to win a general election to be held at some point later this year, he’s growing in confidence.

“We have had lots of conversations with shadow front bench ministers for the agenda we’re bringing through — and actually, I think it’s increasingly understood that if a Labour government incoming wants to deliver quickly, working through the combined authorities is the way,” he says, adding that his life will get easier with Keir Starmer in Downing Street.

The agenda this time includes pledges on housing, the benefits system, and the MBacc. It can be said many pledges in this year’s manifesto aren’t new — ‘housing first’ proposals include a right to a property check and a good landlord charter, which were both announced earlier this year.

The MBacc, as mentioned, is years in the making. However, one new measure is the Live Well benefits system reform.

It includes a request for Greater Manchester to take more powers on from the Department for Work and Pensions, which Labour sources close to Burnham say is agreed with the shadow cabinet. Another new pledge is to introduce hopper fares on Bee Network buses.

That approach has been taken because ‘it’s not about always surprising people with the new’, Burnham claims, instead believing ‘it’s about having the right priority and something of scale that will change lives in Greater Manchester’.

So, with a well-known candidate arguing for a sober manifesto – one that has assurances from the party that could form the next government – local Labour campaigners are confident that Andy Burnham will win. Even if he isn’t taking it for granted.

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