The post is due to be created in May 2017 and is at present held on an interim basis by former police and crime commissioner and MP Tony Lloyd, who is also expected to try to become Labour’s candidate.
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The description states it is “the official account of Andy Burnham’s campaign to be Labour’s candidate for Mayor of Greater Manchester”.
In a speech to Labour supporters at Salford Quays, regenerated docklands now home to the BBC and other media companies, Mr Burnham said England needs to “rebalance the cultural, media and financial power of the country”.
He will also challenge Chancellor George Osborne to act on his Northern Powerhouse agenda by prioritising the trans-Pennine high-speed rail link instead of London’s Crossrail 2.
“It has left us with an uneven share of resources, power and life chances”. I would want to use the Mayor’s housing fund to buy out the absent private landlords who have barely ever been to Greater Manchester and don’t care about the place.
Mr Burnham, the former health secretary, had been expected to announce his candidacy on Thursday but his intentions became clear when one of his Twitter profiles was rebranded as “Andy4Manchester”.
In a swipe at his two ex-minister rivals, Mr Lloyd and Mr Lewis, who never reached the Cabinet, Mr Burnham will say: “The Mayor of Greater Manchester is a Cabinet-level job that requires Cabinet-level experience”. The London perspective on life dominates the political debate and does not do justice to the challenges that people here face.
“I am ready to leave Westminster and devote myself to this new task of rebalancing our country from south to north”.
“In a good way sometimes, brought back down to earth, but because of that mentality perhaps we don’t lift our sights a bit and walk a bit taller and feel confident and say, ‘Yeah, do you know what, I can do that”. Burnham equally had no qualms about taking up the problems of globalisation, saying “politics isn’t speaking to the North West” and that even the biggest allies of the Blair immigration plan could no longer claim it didn’t put additional pressure on public services.
“I am somebody who’s studied the Manchester music scene over many years”.
“The mistake Labour made in Scotland was that when devolution came, we didn’t field our biggest names and consequently it looked like we didn’t take it seriously enough”. We can’t make that mistake again. “Let’s grab it with both hands”, he said. “This truly is the Greater Manchester Way”.
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Another shadow cabinet minister Luciana Berger, recently said she was considering running for the new “metro mayor” role in Liverpool.
