Manchester Made Him. Britain Will Test Him.

23 July 2026 | Rob Fellows

I’ve known Andy Burnham for a long time. I was part of his 2015 Labour leadership campaign, spending months travelling the country with him, meeting members, campaigning and seeing first-hand how he operates when the cameras aren’t rolling. That doesn’t make my view any more important than anyone else’s, but it does mean I’ve seen Andy at his best, at his lowest and during the long years when becoming Prime Minister looked a very distant prospect.

Watching him walk through the door of No.10 this week was, whichever way you look at it, a remarkable political moment. Two unsuccessful leadership campaigns would have ended many careers. Instead, Andy reinvented himself as Mayor of Greater Manchester, built one of the strongest political brands outside Westminster and has now reached the highest office in the country. Whatever your politics, that’s an extraordinary comeback.

That doesn’t mean I’ve agreed with everything he’s done along the way. I’ve never hidden my discomfort at the way Andy increasingly positioned himself against Keir Starmer. Whatever history ultimately says about Starmer, let’s not forget the scale of the task he inherited. He took Labour from its worst election defeat in generations to a landslide victory and made the party electable again. Without that achievement there would have been no Labour government for Andy to inherit, and I sometimes think too many Labour MPs have been far too quick to forget that fact.

Where Andy has always had an advantage over Starmer is in his ability to connect with people. He’s naturally approachable, easy to chat to and genuinely interested in whoever is standing in front of him. Whether it’s a party member, a journalist or someone who has simply stopped him in the street, he has a knack for making people feel that they’re being listened to. Politics often overcomplicates communication. Andy never really has.

One thing that has always amused me is how conversations with Andy almost inevitably end up back in Manchester. More specifically, buses. That isn’t a criticism — far from it. The Bee Network has become the defining achievement of his mayoralty and a genuine example of devolution delivering tangible improvements. It has also become the blueprint for much of his political thinking.

The challenge now is whether the Manchester model can become the model for Britain.

Greater Manchester is one of Europe’s great city regions, but Britain is far more diverse than that. The priorities of a former mining village in the South Wales Valleys are different from those of suburban Manchester. A remote Scottish island faces challenges that simply don’t exist in a major urban centre, while rural Lincolnshire or a struggling coastal community have their own entirely different pressures. One of Andy’s greatest strengths has been understanding Manchester. The next few years will show whether he understands Britain with the same instinct.

The same applies to government itself. Running a mayoral authority and running the United Kingdom are very different jobs. As Mayor, Andy could often pick up the phone to people he’d worked alongside for years and get things moving. Downing Street doesn’t operate like that. Whitehall is slower, Cabinet government is more complex and international events have a habit of arriving without warning. The skills that made Andy such an effective Mayor will certainly help him, but they won’t always be enough.

We’ve now had our first glimpse of the Burnham premiership. His Cabinet has been appointed, ministers are in place and the government has made a series of early announcements designed to demonstrate energy and momentum. That’s exactly what every new administration hopes to achieve. First impressions matter, but governments are rarely judged by their opening week. They are judged by what happens when the headlines fade, difficult decisions have to be taken and events overtake even the best-laid plans.

It has also been fascinating to watch Labour’s parliamentary party rally around Andy. Some MPs clearly see him as the leader they’ve been waiting for, while others undoubtedly believe he has a stronger instinctive connection with voters than Starmer ever managed. There is, of course, another political reality. Many backbench MPs know their own futures depend on Labour winning elections, and they believe Andy gives them the best chance of holding on to their seats. That’s not a criticism; it’s politics. But governing successfully demands much more than electoral popularity.

The Cabinet appointments tell us a great deal about Andy’s instincts as Prime Minister. Personnel is policy, as the old saying goes. The people a Prime Minister chooses to surround themselves with reveal their judgement, their priorities and whether they value challenge as much as loyalty. Those decisions often tell us far more than any speech delivered from a lectern – or without one, for that matter – outside No.10.

Before I finish, I’d like to mention someone who will receive very little attention as this new government finds its feet.

Kevin Lee has been Andy Burnham’s right-hand man for years. Through leadership defeats, political setbacks, reinvention in Manchester and now the move to Downing Street, Kevin has remained a constant. Politics is full of fair-weather friends, but Kevin has never been one of them. His loyalty to Andy has been unwavering, and through every setback and every success he has simply got on with the job, never seeking recognition and never making it about himself.

I’ve known Kevin for many years and can honestly say he is one of the most loyal people I’ve ever met. He’s also one of the most professional, trusted and decent people operating in politics. Every successful political leader has someone behind the scenes whose judgement they value implicitly, and Kevin has been that person for Andy for a very long time. As Andy begins this new chapter in Downing Street, I hope Kevin takes a moment to reflect on the journey too. Those of us fortunate enough to know them both understand just how much he has contributed.

Andy Burnham has arrived in Downing Street with enormous goodwill, a strong political instinct and a proven record of delivering for Manchester. The next few years will determine whether those qualities can be translated onto a national stage. I wish him well, because if he succeeds, the country succeeds. But the real test starts now.