Andy Burnham has been handed scathing criticism of his 10-year plan to fix a “broken” Westminster by Andy Preston.
Speaking to GB News, the former Mayor of Middlesbrough declared the Makerfield MP “didn’t really say anything” as he set out his vision of “hope” for the nation.
Delivering his speech in Manchester, Mr Burnham said that the country is “stuck in a rut” and “isn’t where it should be”.
He said: “After 10 years of political turbulence since Brexit and 20 years of falling living standards since the 2008 financial crash, Westminster hasn’t been working for people and it hasn’t been working for a very long time.
“In fact, it is broken and as a result, the country isn’t where it should be. It is stuck in a rut and clearly we can’t go on like this.”
Delivering his verdict on the speech, Mr Preston told GB News that Mr Burnham “said all the nice stuff” that Britons want to hear.
He said: “He didn’t really say anything, did he? He said all the nice stuff, because everyone believes in having more housing, especially social housing.
“Everybody believes in a more balanced economy, everyone believes in greater opportunity. Well, what are you going to do about it now?”
The ex-Mayor argued that Mr Burnham’s record in Manchester is simply a “myth”.
He explained: “He’ll say well, look at my record, Mayor of Greater Manchester. The people keep saying that the growth was as strong as or even stronger than London’s. That’s largely a myth.
“Greater Manchester’s population boomed, it grew by 250,000 people in the last 10 years – that’s the size of Southampton. They bolted on an economy the size of Southampton onto their city, which drove their economic growth per head. Nobody is better off in Manchester.”
However, Mr Preston made clear that he does believe Mr Burnham is an “effective politician” who is an “intelligent guy”.
Mr Preston told GB News: “It was always a great city and now it is a brilliant city centre. It’s got its challenges with visible homelessness and drug dealing, but it’s a fantastic city, but that’s not Andy Burnham and I can prove it to you.
“Greater Glasgow doesn’t have an elected mayor, doesn’t even have devolution. In the same way that economy has become more productive and more effective than Manchester’s, without Andy Burnham, without even having a mayor.
“In Bristol, they call it West of England, there’s a metro mayor there. They have done at least as well economically as Manchester, despite not having the same devolution deal. So I’m not saying Andy Burnham is to blame for all the bad stuff, but I certainly don’t think that he’s to be credited with the good stuff.”
He argued that Manchester was an economic “bomb site” when Mr Burnham came into power, making it “easier and faster to rebuild”.
He stated: “It has outpaced the Birmingham West Midlands area, but it hasn’t outpaced Glasgow, it hasn’t outpaced the Bristol area. Andy Burnham is not the driver of Manchester’s apparent success.”
Pressed by host Dawn Neesom on how Mr Burnham can fund his plan for Britain, Mr Preston detailed “three ways” he could do it.
He said: “You can raise money by being lucky with global growth, you can raise money by taxing people or you can make cuts.
“Cuts are painful, unpopular and usually we don’t get loads of growth. I will bet that Andy Burnham doesn’t want to make big cuts, so it’s probably going to come down to taxes.”
