Why Andy Burnham is the next Nicola Sturgeon

This may be barely concealed trauma from my time as a Scottish civil servant but, when I look at Andy Burnham, I see Nicola Sturgeon. 

The cultivated public image of Labour’s miracle man in the north is a powerful one. He pulls off the ‘one of us’, ‘man of the people’, ‘our lad done good’ shtick better than most politicians – in spite of his Blairite origins. Sturgeon wielded a similar power. It always surprised me how popular she was with the mums. As long as she said ‘sorry’ occasionally, most people – even those who did not vote for her – were sympathetic and felt she was often unfairly criticised during her nine-year tenure as first minister. Burnham seems to possess some of that voter appeal and, in turn, that political immunity too. 

This ‘good guy’ vibe helps explain why the mayor of Greater Manchester feels he can get away with abdicating from office and running for parliament. Just two years ago, he had promised voters in his city that he was ‘committed to my third term, absolutely’. Then, yesterday, he announced he wanted to stand in the Makerfield by-election to ‘regain the trust of people’ in the constituency. Contradictory? Not, apparently, if you’re a true ‘man of the people’ listening to your ailing nation.

Now, the political skill to be able to pull off that dichotomy is obviously impressive. But it’s also worth looking past the vibes of a vibes politician and examining the numbers beneath the mythology.

Just as Sturgeon wanted to be ‘judged on education’ and claimed to view it as her reason for being, the reality of her premiership was one of declining standards and a widening attainment gap between the richest and poorest. Something similar may be true of Burnham’s signature claim.

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The idea that Burnham has almost single-handedly turned Greater Manchester into an economic powerhouse against the backdrop of a stagnant Britain is based on numbers that don’t quite add up. Indeed, just as Sturgeon was able to present UK policy successes as her own, a lot of the economic success Burnham now takes credit for were set in motion long before he’d even finished his first term as a minister in the Blair government. The property boom in Manchester city centre began in the 90s, while transport reform and an expanding services sector were decades-long trends. 

But his claims really start to come off the rails when you look at productivity. Burnham’s supporters talk up a Manchester ‘productivity miracle’ but the data underpinning that claim looks a tad dodgy. From 2008 to 2023, output per worker increased by 0.5 per cent per year on average across the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). In Greater Manchester, that lacklustre productivity growth rate seemed to surge and hit an annual average of 3.3 per cent in 2019. But, as Economics Observatory has shown, that data is shoddy at best – making the claims of a ‘productivity miracle’ even more questionable. It is well worth reading Paul Swinney’s article for its website in full here but here are his main points: 

1. A third of the output growth in the ONS’s stats for Greater Manchester is chalked up to the ‘legal and accounting’ sector. But the growth is so much that it accounts for nearly half (45 per cent) of all of the UK’s output growth in that sector. Can that be right? 
2. That growth happened in Trafford, not central Manchester. But Trafford’s contribution to UK output growth was 18 per cent not 45 per cent.
3. The ONS numbers report a 21,000 jobs increase in the legal and accounting sector in one middle super output area (MSOA) of Trafford. There are no buildings in that area capable of housing that many people.
4. While output was supposedly surging between 2019 and 2023, other ONS figures show total hours worked falling over the same time period. Again, this doesn’t add up. Swinney suggests this is due to an undercounting of self-employment which, when adjusted for, makes productivity growth look much less impressive.
5. Again, while productivity supposedly surged, wages did not. Two things are possible here: productivity hasn’t actually surged or it did but with no benefit to workers. 

However, even if the Manchester ‘productivity miracle’ turned out to be real, it would still hugely lag behind London. The productivity gap (which stood at 35 per cent in 2023) is barely closing. Increased wealth – if it is real – has not gone ‘to the many’. Indeed, any real wage increases Manchester has seen seem to have been a result of minimum wage hikes rather than a wider jump in living standards. 

Now, none of this is to say Burnham is not responsible for any success at all. And, actually, being a popular politician is an achievement in itself given the disdain we hold for others in elected office. But, if Manchester’s growth story is really one of a Potemkin city, then the danger is that Burnham will not be able to transfer any success to wider Britain. We’ll all pay the price for that.  

In the end, Nicola Sturgeon was destroyed by her own ego. Andy Burnham’s hubris could send him the same way.