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 will no doubt be back and forth, he'll have to be because No 10 and the Houses of Parliament are in London.

He has not been made prime minister yet but everyone across the media is carrying on as if it was a done deal. I sincerely hope that someone else will be made prime minister. The whole thing seems very shady to me.

There are already government departments outside of London. The Office for National Statistics is mainly in Newport, The British Geological Survey is based outside Nottingham, the DVLA is in Swansea, HMRC have 13 offices outside London.

People outside of London can read and count you know, some even have degrees!

Agree with this. No details, no scrutiny. Absolute lash up. I’ve said it before, if we want to fix this mess we need a general election and a cross party plan of action.

Sensible politicians with experience, including AB. He’s going nowhere like this until he lays out the policies he wants to implement in order to pay for it all.

Unless he gets in and tries it we won’t know

It isn’t the entire government, it is a portion of it. I don’t think it is a bad idea to try it.

Problem with having everything in London is that life in London doesn’t necessarily reflect life in the rest of the country and so I think being able to give ministers insight into elsewhere can only be good?

Does Yorkshire still want independence? He could sort that out too

Cumbria is also the actual north and it's easier to get to Manchester from here than London. I get your point though!

All MPs except London MPs are back and forth.

Manchester is pretty far south to be fair. It cracks me up when people demand to be known as northerners when there is actually hunners of miles to the north.

Anyway, why should government have to stay in London? I have heard tell of office buildings in other parts of the UK, surely it can be done!

On a more serious note, we've have a shot of centralised government for yonks. Maybe let's have a go at a bit of decentralisation and spread the opportunity for involvement in government offices across the population.

He’s not proposing that at all.

But but but who will look after Larry the cat?

I don't give a fuck where they are as they are all as useless as each other. The interdepartmental communication is dreadful so won't be any worse or better if there's a few hundred miles between them.

Well they try just relocate everyone to Manchester. Same as any organisation moving premises.

Like the BBC moved a bunch of people up there to Salford.

Loads would probably moan as they loved charging the taxpayer to have a luxury second home in London in order to attend parliament more conveniently.

It might make it cheaper to run the houses etc. I guess they'd sell the HOP to a luxury foreign developer?!

I was born in Manchester but lived in the NE for so long, it’s really not north!

When there are huge problems in the country, his opening gambit is stick with me for 10 years and I am moving (some) government to Manchester...Just wait until the civil service unions get asked their opinions.. Has he not watched the Yes Prime Minster episode on this? Dont bother asking about any cost savings as they wont be any at the end of the day, there never is...

As long as he doesn't take the helicopter all the time when he needs to travel like Rishi Sunak (that cost us £50 million), fine.

It’ ll have to be Barry the whippet

You do realise all governments use “other people’s money”? 🙄🤦‍♀️

I expect because this is our sixth PM in ten years. The country is so divided that it can't be governed and the press is in a continual cycle of agitation to remove the PM. This might be avoided if the major parties weren't themselves so internally divided but, as it stands, MPs can't seem to avoid threatening a leadership challenge on a monthly basis.

Ooh, Larry. Yes! Mind you, probably better to have a break from the revolving door of PM's, he'll enjoy the peace. Hope he has a dedicated feeder and tuck into bedder tho!

@ruethewhirl because his socialist plans are going to send the markets into meltdown, his tax raids will drive more away and impact markets ( and voter feelings!), he’s more pro immigration which people don’t want, his policies will further wreck the economy and he’ll be more hated than Starmer

he has no mandate for any of his policies, less so than Starmer.

If Manchester isn't in the north, then does that mean as a scouser I'm not a northerner? I'd like to see you tell anyone from Liverpool they're a southerner. 😂

I'd be interested to understand why you think it can only be done from London?

Technologica!

Speaking as someone who has family in both Newcastle and Manchester the east coast main line is approximately six million times better than the west coast main line.

if I had to get used to it, you can too!

Couldn't he call it "Number 10 South (but not as far south as London)"?

I know he has to start somewhere, and he has a hell of a job to do, but I'd be more confident if he hadn't just hit the "Manchester" reflex. Not that I have a problem with Manchester, it'd just have shown some ability to look to the rest of the country.