We were promised an era of civic rebirth. Instead, Covid has shown how obsessively London clings to power
For those of us who have always longed for British politics to shift its focus beyond Westminster, last Tuesday afternoon brought a tantalising glimpse of an alternative reality. A gathering of press and politicians outside Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall produced one moment of solid-gold drama: when the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, suddenly received confirmation that his region would soon fall under tier 3 of the government’s Covid-19 restrictions via a message on a mobile phone, and pronounced the decision “brutal”.
Related: This pandemic has been the making of England’s elected mayors | Simon Jenkins
