He quit Westminster to become mayor of Greater Manchester. Does the ‘king of the north’ still have ambitions to be prime minister?
It is a Tuesday afternoon in October and Andy Burnham has just got off the phone with Boris Johnson. After two weeks of negotiations over how to deal with Greater Manchester’s soaring Covid rates, talks have collapsed, and as the region’s mayor, it is his job to tell the public why. He leaves his office and walks round the corner to Bridgewater Hall to be greeted with the biggest press pack he has faced in years.
The press conference was sold to me, the Guardian’s North of England editor, as a “select event”, but it is nothing of the kind. I am standing in line behind national reporters, with well-wishers shouting, “Go on, Andy, lad!” as Burnham begins to speak.
