Andy Burnham wants you to think he speaks for the entire north of England. His recent push to establish what critics call a mini No 10 in the north out of Greater Manchester is pitched as a bold leap forward for regional devolution. It sounds great on a leaflet. But if you step outside the boundaries of the text alerts sent by the Manchester Combined Authority, the reaction changes dramatically. From Leeds to Newcastle, regional leaders are quietly gritting their teeth. They don't see a champion for the north. They see an ambitious politician trying to turn Manchester into a secondary London, sucking up resources and attention while everyone else gets left behind.
Devolution was supposed to fix the UK's broken, centralized political system. The promise was simple. Power would move away from Westminster and back into the hands of local communities. Instead, we are watching a different kind of centralization happen right before our eyes. Manchester is becoming the very thing it claims to hate.
The illusion of a united northern front
The fundamental flaw in the Andy Burnham plan for a No 10 in the north is the assumption that the north of England is a single, homogeneous block with identical interests. It isn't. The economic needs of a former shipbuilding town in Tyne and Wear are vastly different from the financial services hub growing in the center of Leeds or the agricultural communities of North Yorkshire.
When the Mayor of Greater Manchester stands at a podium and claims to demand a better deal for the north, he is structurally incentivized to demand a better deal for Manchester. That distinction matters. For years, other northern cities have watched Manchester secure preferential funding deals, trail-blazing devolution powers, and massive infrastructure focus.
Consider the transport network. While Manchester enjoys an integrated, publicly controlled bus system modeled on London, passengers in neighboring West Yorkshire face fragmented services and delayed rail links. When one city gets a bespoke line to the Treasury while others are left waiting in the lobby, it breeds resentment. This isn't a collective rise of the northern regions. It looks like a single city-region pulling up the ladder.
Why other northern leaders are locking their doors
Step into the civic halls of Liverpool or Leeds and the skepticism becomes concrete. Leaders there remember the original Northern Powerhouse concept introduced over a decade ago. It was supposed to create a network of interconnected economic hubs across the M62 corridor. Instead, it frequently felt like a Manchester-first initiative.
The idea of creating an executive hub in Manchester to counter London simply relocates the problem rather than solving it. A centralized authority based in Piccadilly Gardens is just as disconnected from a coastal community in Cumbria as one based in Whitehall.
Local politicians outside Manchester won't say this openly on camera because they need to present a united front when bargaining with central government. But off the record, the complaints are identical. They worry that a formalized northern headquarters under Burnham's shadow will relegate their own mayoralties to tier-two status. They didn't fight to claw power back from civil servants in London just to hand it over to bureaucrats in Manchester.
The financial reality checking the hype
We need to look at how regional funding actually works to understand why this executive push is struggling to gain traction outside the Northwest. Government cash is finite. Despite big political speeches about leveling up, the funding pots are highly competitive.
When Greater Manchester secured its single-settlement funding deal, giving it London-style control over its budgets, it was hailed as a massive win. And it was, for Manchester. But that model relies on having a massive, dense urban economy that can generate significant local tax revenues.
Smaller combined authorities or rural counties simply cannot replicate that scale. If the UK shifts to a model where a powerful executive hub in Manchester dictates the regional strategy, funding allocations will naturally bias toward projects that support that central engine. The smaller towns become feeder zones. That isn't economic rebalancing. It's just a smaller version of the London-centric model we already have.
How to actually fix regional inequality
If the current approach is creating a localized version of Westminster, what should we be doing instead? True regional empowerment requires an entirely different structure.
First, we must stop treating regional devolution as a competition where the loudest mayor wins the biggest prize. The government needs to establish a baseline of core powers that apply to every region automatically, rather than forcing local authorities to beg for bespoke deals.
Second, infrastructure must prioritize connections between regions rather than just linking satellite towns to a single regional capital. The real economic blockages in the north aren't a lack of a central media briefing room in Manchester. The problem is that it takes longer to travel by train between some northern cities than it does to get to London. Fix the tracks, don't build another executive office.
Finally, we need to diversify where national institutions are relocated. Moving a government department from London to Manchester is a lazy shortcut. Spread those centers of influence across Sheffield, Hull, and Sunderland. Give every area a direct stake in the national machinery rather than letting one city monopolize the relocation trade.
The path forward requires a shift in focus from building a localized political empire to building a genuinely distributed network of power.
Check your local authority's current devolution deal to see how much control your region actually has over transport and skills budgets compared to the major metropolitan hubs. Look closely at where your regional transport spending is directed. If you find your area is being bypassed for major funding, write to your local representative and demand that they challenge the assumption that one city speaks for your regional economy.
