Everyone can feel the country is not where it should be. People feel it in their bills, their rent, their high streets, their transport, and at the end of every month when there is less and less left over.
In London, that feeling has its own shape. It is felt in Newham. It is felt in Brent. Croydon feels it. It is felt in towns like Barking, communities like Tottenham, and in places that have waited too long for politics to work for them.
That is why I am putting forward a new direction for the country.
After 10 years of political turbulence since Brexit, and 20 years of falling living standards since the financial crash, Westminster has not been working for people. It has not been working for a very long time. In fact, it is broken.
We cannot go through another decade like the one we have just had.
I am going to do things differently and give Britain the circuit-breaker it needs
We need a new determination to raise living standards for every single person in this land. To do that, to fix the economy and the country, we need to change politics, and we need to do it now.
I am going to do things differently. I’m moving away from the same approach that has got us here. I am going to give Britain the circuit-breaker it needs.
That starts by building a more collaborative politics in Westminster, by taking power out of the centre, and putting it in the hands of the people and places who can use it best.
Growth from the bottom up
We will make politics work for you, and the place where you live.
I know it can be done because we have done it in Greater Manchester. When I started as Mayor in 2017, we set about building a new politics based on the exact opposite of the Westminster approach: place first, not party first; problem-solving, not scoring; long-term, not short-term. That is the approach I would bring to London.
It means starting with the life people are actually living. Not the argument Westminster wants to have. Not a map in Whitehall. Not an economy ordered from the top down. Growth cannot be ordered from the top down. It can only be nurtured from the bottom up.
In London, that means backing housing, transport, skills and public services. It means giving boroughs the power and resources to build homes, cut costs and back young people. It means seeing the positives in Hackney, Southwark, Hounslow and Waltham Forest, not writing places off or treating them as an afterthought.
The whole country suffers when the regions and nations fail to meet their potential. We will never get growth up to the level Britain needs unless every single postcode in the land is set up to contribute to it.
That is why I will bring about the biggest rebalancing of power our country has seen, so together we can lift Britain back up to where it should be.
Number 10 North will be the nerve centre of a rewired Britain. It will be the conduit through which we redistribute power and resources across the UK. Its job will be to make power flow into places like Lewisham, Enfield, Ealing and Harrow, not hold it back.
The days of Whitehall fighting the devolution of power into the regions and nations are over. For good.
The whole of Whitehall will be required to get behind our places and work together with them to make quicker, more joined-up decisions. Ours will be a 10-year mission to raise living standards across the land.
That mission will focus on three clear tasks: reform of essential utilities, reindustrialisation, and the regeneration of places.
Andy Burnham’s three-point plan for growth in London
Utilities
All parts of the UK should be able to take greater public control of essential services such as water, housing, energy and transport, learning from the model that has transformed our bus networks in Greater Manchester.
We will set out 10-year plans to bring down the cost of these essentials to individuals, families and businesses. For London, that means housing, energy and transport. It means taking the cost of rent, bills and fares seriously. It means making sure people are not left overpaying for the basics while their wages stand still and their communities are asked to accept less.
Reindustrialisation
Every region should be supported in setting clear and credible industrial ambitions and in achieving them. Britain can be the world’s leading innovation nation, but that has to mean something in the places where people live.
In London, the opportunity is life sciences. It is clean technology. It is digital and creative industries. The task now is to ensure that the jobs, skills, apprenticeships and wealth that come from that future are rooted in the communities that help create it.
For too long, public procurement has chased cut-price deals around the world rather than helping British-based suppliers become more stable and competitive. No more.
Every pound raised from taxpayers should work harder for them. We need to safeguard sovereign manufacturing and production capabilities in critical sectors such as steel, defence, energy, food and farming. In return, we should deliver maximum benefits for our communities and our residents.
That means more 45-day work placements and apprenticeships for young people. It means a complete rethink of how we support the next generation to succeed. The days of a school system configured entirely around the university route will be brought to an end.
University is great for those who want it. But we have to focus on the life chances of young people who want something different too.
We will build parity between academic and technical education, giving every young person a clear path into a reindustrialised Britain.
In London, that means young people in Newham, Croydon, Barking and Dagenham, Lambeth and Haringey should see a route into skilled work close to home. They should not have to leave to get on in life.
Regeneration
Everything starts with a good home. If you do not give people a good home, what chance have they got of having a good life?
Britain has lost almost one and a half million council homes since the 1980s. The country is in a housing trap, forced to chase rents in the private rented sector through the benefit system. At the same time, families are made homeless and councils are left with unfunded pressures for temporary accommodation.
That has to change.
Working with local areas, Number 10 North will oversee the biggest council house building programme since the post-war era. We will use vacant public land to reduce costs. We will adopt a national Housing First philosophy. And we will put a secure home back where it belongs: at the foundation of working class aspiration.
For London, that means more council homes and genuinely affordable homes. It means homes people can afford in Brent, Greenwich, Tower Hamlets, Westminster and Hillingdon. It means towns and local centres with more life. It means high streets that are backed, not managed in decline.
Through this new approach, we will bring higher density residential development to our towns, turn around high streets and local centres, increase footfall and protect more green spaces from development.
And we will reform business rates to support pubs and high street businesses, the businesses that bring social benefits to communities.
Rather than being a marker of decline, our high streets should become the new symbol of Britain’s renaissance.
This is the change I am offering London.
Not more of the same. Not another decade of politics that spends too much time arguing and not enough time doing. Not a country where places are forgotten, written off, or told to wait their turn.
Imagine if all local areas could build homes people can afford
A country wired to work for ordinary people rather than against them.
Imagine if all local areas could build homes people can afford, to the point where they could guarantee one for everyone. Imagine if we could bring down energy costs for people and businesses. Imagine good growth in every postcode, and hope in every heart.
My pitch to London is simple: politics should work for you and the place where you live.
It should back your strengths, understand your pressures and give your community the power to shape its own future.
Good growth in every postcode. Hope in every heart.
Imagine no more. Let’s make it happen.
Andy Burnham is the Labour MP for Makerfield and the former Mayor of Greater Manchester
