Thursday briefing: Andy Burnham wants to remake Britain from the regions up. Can it work?
In today’s newsletter: The newish prime minister wants to shift power out of Westminster, but fragile councils, patchy financial scrutiny and dwindling local journalism could put his plans at risk
Good morning. Over the summer, I interviewed more than 40 people who are trying to influence the new Labour government for the Guardian Long Read, among them thinktank researchers and politicians. The piece, published this morning, tries to work out how radical Andy Burnham intends to be. So far, his big idea is to give more power and money to England’s regions than ever before – and while “devolution” isn’t a word that sets pulses racing, this plan could be genuinely transformative.
Yet, since writing the piece, one thing that has nagged at me is the wider picture. Local media has been gutted. Mechanisms for scrutinising local authority finances have disappeared. Local services and the public realm have been vaporised. Cash-strapped councils have made risky investments and gone bankrupt. All of this amounts to something bigger than a single crisis of accountability; the state’s legitimacy has been eroded, leaving people disenchanted with and distrustful of politics.
Burnham is hoping that devolution will renew people’s faith in democracy. But the wider context poses huge risks to this project before it has barely even begun. Today’s newsletter discusses these risks and opportunities with Josh Halliday, the Guardian’s North of England editor, who wrote yesterday about the need for greater scrutiny of mayors. First, the headlines.
Five big stories
Climate crisis | The UK has warned that the climate crisis and coming El Niño threaten national security and defence around the world, presenting foreign ministries with the findings of an explosive report suppressed under Keir Starmer.
US news | A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore White House access to journalists from CNN, MS Now and Politico, saying his ban on the three media outlets was likely unconstitutional.
Education | Teenagers are to be offered a range of new vocational GCSEs under a radical shake-up of the school system in England designed to tackle a crisis that has left nearly a million young people out of work or training.
Conservatives | People claiming universal credit would have their payments cut by a third if they have not paid enough national insurance, under a Conservative plan condemned by one charity as “a fast track to increased poverty”.
Football | Andy Burnham has signalled he may lift the ban on drinking alcohol in the stands at football matches, suggesting it is “unfair” for fans to be singled out when it is permitted for other sports.
In depth: ‘A seminal moment … but the risks are huge’
Burnham, with his behind-the-scenes TikTok video of No 10 North, has made devolving power away from Westminster his central big idea. “If anything had brought me into parliament, it was a mission to close the North-South divide,” he wrote in his 2024 book, Head North. “Seeing how things worked from the inside, I finally understood why England has always felt like two countries.”
The clearest statement of this intention since he became prime minister is a paper his cabinet published in July, which outlined plans to let mayors keep a share of income tax generated in their areas and give them greater control over skills, transport and public services.
“These plans are a seminal moment in terms of how Britain is run,” Josh Halliday tells me. “But the risks are huge. It just takes one or two bad scandals – such as the bankruptcy of Birmingham council – to really damage the legitimacy of the whole project.” Here’s how those risks break down.
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The media | A shrinking local press
Burnham was the mayor of a city comparatively well-served by the media. The Guardian was founded in Manchester and continues to have a newsroom of reporters there (including Josh). Despite the ongoing decline of regional journalism, flourishing media start-ups and subscription newsletters in cities like Manchester, Glasgow, and Birmingham have proven there is still demand for quality local journalism. There have also been wider initiatives to address England’s “news deserts”, such as the BBC Local Democracy Reporting Service.
But the bigger picture is one of endless closures and cuts. Reach, the owner of regional titles in England, announced a further round of 220 redundancies (though plans to create 60 new roles) two weeks ago. Even Burnham, who started his career writing for publications such as Tank World, moved to London to find work in journalism. Josh, who graduated from Sunderland university in 2010, used to dream of working for a local newspaper, but found it difficult to even get a work experience placement.
“There are fewer and fewer local journalists, which means fewer people keeping an eye on council meetings or scrutinising budget reports,” he tells me. “And that’s really worrying.”
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Local democracy | Participation has been ‘squeezed’
Journalism isn’t the only institution that holds politicians’ feet to the fire. Civil society plays a crucial role, but the cost of living crisis and the gradual erosion of the institutions that bind people together have diminished people’s involvement in politics.
“We often talk about the cost of living crisis as a financial squeeze,” Sarah Longlands, the chief executive of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies in Manchester, tells me. “But it’s also squeezed people’s ability to turn up at local campaign groups, to attend town council meetings, to run as councillors themselves, because they’re just focused on the day-to-day of getting by.”
For most people, politics isn’t about nuclear deterrents or Westminster white papers, but about how often the bins get emptied or whether the library stays open. In recent years, local authorities have sold off local assets and outsourced public services to faceless providers. This, Sarah says, has robbed people of institutions that give them a stake in their communities. “Take away publicly funded local services, and you take away the frontline engagement and relationship between councils and communities that form part of democracy,” she says.
She is particularly concerned that Burnham may decide to go ahead with a plan to reorganise local government that he inherited from his predecessor. Those plans are now on pause, but two professors recently described in the Guardian’s letter pages how the scheme could result in the disappearance of as many as 75% of England’s existing councils, eliminating institutions that have close ties to communities, and making services even more anonymous and detached.
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Scrutiny | Who will keep an eye on the money
Over the last decade there’s been a vacuum of information about the financial decisions taken by councils. In 2015, David Cameron abolished the Audit Commission, a body that scoured local governments’ accounts every year. Since then, some struggling councils have gone on reckless spending sprees, buying office blocks and shopping centres while cutting back on local services. Some have since declared bankruptcy. “The National Audit Office will get called in to investigate, but only once there’s already been an emergency,” Josh tells me. “They’re not a safeguard against financial crises.”
The Starmer government introduced plans for a new Local Audit Office, which should help address some of these problems, and Burnham’s government is expected to publish further details of its plans for accountability in a few weeks’ time alongside its first budget.
Amid all this is a wider question about how to make the devolution of power genuinely democratic. Sarah suggests that any new authority or mayoralty should commit to an ongoing citizens’ assembly, where residents can collectively decide how new resources are allocated, and scrutinise government spending.
“The government mainly talks about devolution as a way to drive growth,” she says. “But this could be a cutting edge way to redesign British democracy, so it really works for people.”
What else we’ve been enjoying
Nesrine Malik examines why enslavement remains absent from mainstream British history in our sister newsletter, The Long Wave, after the Guardian revealed new detail of domestic slave traders and the institutions they funded. Libby
Ammar Kalia’s ranking of 100 unusual crisp flavours is both useful and an absolute hoot. It also seems to have been a brave undertaking, considering some of Ammar’s verdicts: “they leave a luminescent blue powder on your fingers and smell of urinal cakes”. Lucinda Everett, newsletters team
Not only are adults failing to act effectively on the climate crisis, we’re also rubbish at explaining its realities to kids. So I was pleased to read that New York Climate Week is getting some help from Sesame Street. Libby
I enjoyed Matthew Pearce’s interview with author Russell Warfield, who argues that Zack Polanski’s “eco-populist” package is “not a departure from Green tradition, but the culmination of a 50-year evolution which has turned the party into the main electoral force on the British left.” Lucinda
Dani Garavelli’s diary of her visit to Mussolini’s birthplace in this week’s London Review of Books is a timely reminder of the echoes of Il Duce in Italy’s current politics. Libby
Sport
Football | Manchester United have reported an annual loss for the seventh successive year, taking the club’s combined losses to £444m since 2019.
Rugby | Steve Borthwick has secured a boost for his preparations for next year’s World Cup thanks to an overhaul in the refereeing of Prem matches for the coming season designed to help England’s hopes in Australia.
Football | Cristiano Ronaldo said he considered quitting international football after the World Cup, but confirmed he plans to play on for Portugal and hopes to reach 1,000 goals for club and country.
The front pages
The Guardian leads with “PM unveils new vocational GCSEs in biggest exam shake-up in decade”. The Telegraph has “Tories to ban spending benefits on alcohol”, while the Times follows the same story with “Tories to cut benefits for long-term unemployed”. The Mail characterises the announcement as “Kemi’s ruthless crackdown on benefits street”.
The i has “EU Brexit chief: UK can get a Canada-style membership deal with us”. The Financial Times reports “Healey weighs smaller fiscal headroom to reduce tax rises”. The Mirror covers the crash of an RAF jet under the headline “Miracle no on was killed”. And the Sun looks at the reported axing of alcohol bans in football stadiums with “Going down going down going down.. rather nicely!”
Today in Focus: The Latest
Has Burnham proved he can handle Trump?
Andy Burnham has navigated his way through a first high-stakes meeting with Donald Trump at the UN general assembly in New York. The prime minister’s aides were delighted with how the meeting went, as Trump praised the US-UK relationship and described Burnham as a ‘natural businessman’. The anticipated sticking points – the Chagos Islands, West Bank settlement sanctions and Ireland – appear not to have derailed the talks nor cast a shadow over the future relationship. Lucy Hough speaks to policy editor Kiran Stacey.
Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
The landmark documentary 7 Up, which launched 63 years ago, followed the lives of 10 boys and four girls in England, beginning when they were seven years old, and returning every seven years. As its final season, 70 Up, concludes, seven people have shared the profound effects the show has had on them over the decades.
“The series changed my life,” says Martin Forsey, 65. “I retrained and became a sociologist and anthropologist because of it.” Lyle Jackson, 72, was inspired to become a documentary photographer and producer, and went on to win 18 regional Emmys. And others found important life lessons within the show. “It seemed that the real measure of success was not academic or material achievements after all,” says Sheila Lambe, 63, “but familial love and finding peace.”
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.