“I said I wanted to get Britain believing again. Today is a day where we hopefully can really build that sense” said Andy Burnham as he arrived at his No 10 in the North Office at Heron House in Manchester
He told No 10 North staff that today “might be the best day of my life”
“I’m not joking. I know you think I am, but I’m not. Things are just completely coming full circle here”
Burnham told the media that
it’s almost exactly 35 years since I left this city as a recently graduated young man, couldn’t find a job in the city. It was in a pretty bad place at that time, it’s fair to say. The ’80s turned into the ’90s. There wasn’t much. Adding
“And that really is an experience that I’ve never forgotten. My generation of people growing up here, and it’s true of places all over the country, to get on in life you had to leave where you were because things weren’t here.“
He said that Opportunity has not been evenly spread around the country and not all places have felt that they’re part of the national story pledging that was what this government is going to work every single day to change,
That he said is what No 10 North is all about:
“putting power in every postcode so that people can turn things around for themselves and make changes just as this great city has done and the other English cities are doing through devolution. Turning things round because of that ability to be able to do more for themselves.”
“I said I wanted to get Britain believing again. Today is a day where we hopefully can really build that sense, get Britain hoping again. I think we can do that together if we carry on working in this way.“
And it’s also about getting the whole country facing the same way and then pulling in the same direction. That I think is what No 10 North can achieve. It’s felt a little at times that local government’s just been a bit forgotten and places aren’t able to do what they want to do. But then at the sort of city level, or the regional level, sometimes it’s felt like an argument with people in the centre of government and people having a to and fro all of the time.
