AIBU to wonder how a government can be based in Manchester?

[dottiedodah]

Andy Burnham is proposing to govern from Manchester when he starts on July 20th.How can this be so ? Surely all previous governments have been based in London?

He hasn't said he won't have a base in London if course he will. That's just speculation and people getting the wrong idea about the policy

He has already got a property in London.
A very priveleged man.

We shouldn't be in this position to be talking about an alternative base outside of London.

All PMs keep a base outside London. They are still constituency MPs.

Sure. Like everyone else on here saying the same exact thing. Not very original.

He needs to shift is priorities from Manchester to the entire nation

Where will he do that?

What, like how previous PMs have been focused on the entire nation?(!)

Not the North West of the UK though.
And the PM is supposedly governing the UK not just England🤷🏼‍♀️
Mancunians, Scousers, Brummies etc.. they might possibly just qualify as 'northerners' to (some of) the English, but they don't even register as Northern for anyone who lives North of Cumbria or Co Durham😁

Shame the previous London centric politicians didn't show much interest in the rest of the UK!

Lol

They have pigeons. Can't go wrong with a pigeon.

Compared to other countries the UK is the most centralised. Especially in terms of how much of the overall tax income county councils have responsibility for spending compared to the central government. This rather nerdy YouTube video on adapting SimCity to the UK goes into more detail
It might also explain why council election turnouts are so low (and usually a protest vote against things). People are apathetic because the stakes seem so low but that's not healthy because it gives people a sense they don't have any real power in their lives.

I don't think we need to be like America. But devolving some more power out would probably help. There are some things that are much better decided as a nation. But for other issues ai think democracy feels more democratic when it's smaller scale.

You’d be surprised how many in the silent majority are now jumping for joy. The ones who just get on with it, try not to moan, work hard and are really struggling regardless.

That’s peculiar because i know loads of BBC employees who live in Chester and on the Wirral

quite a few in, the horrors, actual Manchester

I have found more friends and more caring people in London than I did living my life in the North.

Whilst on the surface the whole “North = Friendly People” seems to ring true until you realise that the friendliness is so they know everything about your business and if you don’t follow their idea of how you dress or how you live your life it can get quite suffocating and definitely unfriendly

It was like a breath of fresh air when I came to London many years ago, to find people who would get to know you over time but didn’t care what you did. Didn’t have an opinion on what you ate for tea or what you were wearing on a Saturday morning or if you weren’t British

All those people who are thinking it would be great to have the Govetnment run from Manchester

Are you prepared for the price hikes?

Are you ready for the £15 pint of beer, the tiny flats for £300,000 or do you actually believe that prices will remain low.

Do you think poky flats in central Manchester aren’t already £300,000?

Whilst there might be a certain type of flat that is smaller brand new or only a few years old at £300,000

There are many starting at around £40,000

I am talking about those £40,000 places being £300,000 and the shiny glass building type flats being high 6 figures.

And the rain doesn’t stop.

If anything , looking at Manchester, I can see why people move to London.

It definitely looks better value than Manchester

At one time we used to have real local government that took real decisions and had local responsibility, and not just for schools either. Hell, back in the 30s it wasn’t national government that determined whether your local town should have electric lights and the power station to run it, but local people creating subscriptions to the local corporation. Britain used to be way more democratic than it is now. What made the difference - the real difference - was the power games played in the 80s and 90s with Thatcher destroying the spirit of organisation outside London in the Miners Strikes, and then the working class traitor Blair spitting on what was left.

Maybe he's planning on reviving HS2 😆

It makes me die that some northerners believe politicians to be totally London-centric. You do not have to travel very far from London into Kent to see extreme poverty and areas with absolutely no investment, it isn’t something exclusive to the north. The constant “levelling up” BS makes me roll my eyes. Unsure how AB as PM will work when he thinks Manchester is the centre of the universe. I vote to move parliament to the Isle of Sheppey or Chatham...

If the OP is asserting that the system is working effectively as it is, then their AIBU makes sense. I mean it would be an important detail to omit, and might lead to a feeling of being less than clear in intention, but heigh ho.

If the OP is asserting that the present system isn't working, then being a logical and reasonable human, they would accept that changing it makes sense, and would have reflected on the pros and cons of the proposed plans.

Just gainsaying from nowhere seems to work in a different direction.

I think you need to reassess your understanding of the phrase “London-centric”, unless you think Kent is in London you’ve just proved your own argument! 😂

@MrsPapillon, @blushroses6 made a valid point - you just need to reread it with more concentration.