No 10 North

[Arewethereyetarewe]

I have just seen this on the news. The building and meeting with some regional mayors.

Is this a good move or a gimmick?

I want to be positive but I am not sure 🤔

Well, its been 3 days. So maybe let’s see after 3 months?

One of the positives out of the whole thing is that lots of the Labour voters who complained about Truss and Sunak and said there should be an election have learnt how our system works!

Yes so far I'll bank that £100 saving on energy.

I think you think I am saying something that I am not. I was responding to you saying Andy Burnham's problem is that everyone sees him as untrustworthy, and pointing out that that is not actually a problem he has, because just factually, most people don't think that.

I am sure Andy Burnham will have many other political problems coming his way, but his personal likeability just isn't one of them. He is unusually well liked for a politician who has been in the public eye for so long.

Similarly, I personally don't think Farage is a likeable guy, and I certainly don't think he's a good guy - but at the same time, I am acutely aware that alot of people DO like Farage and find him charismatic and personable (although it's also a fact that his personal favourability ratings have never been as high as Andy Burnham's are). It would therefore be inaccurate for me to say 'Nigel Farage's problem is that everyone can see that he’s a thoroughly self-interested and untrustworthy man' - because as much as I wish people saw him like that, they just don't. And so, the political challenge is to defeat his arguments rather than to just declare people should see him in a way that they don't.

I suppose I just think when you're discussing politics, it's useful to at least try to separate your subjective opinions from facts.

Presumably Tory voters who complained about Gordon Brown and said there would be an election also learned how our system works?

Northern Ireland will still be utterly forgotten about. We are drowning and he’s sitting there all smug because he has an office outside Downing Street.

Maybe. I don't recall there being as many people complaining. We had been prepped for Brown being the one to take over from Blair almost from day 1.

Absolutely - but really good politicians need to be able to do both, right? They need to be charismatic and liked, in order to be able to push through big, difficult decisions. It will take more than 3 days to see whether Andy Burnham can do that or not - but I think for the good of the country, most people are really hoping he can.

Maybe you should be looking to your own devolved government which has been utterly shambolic, thanks to some of your politicians being unable to let go of factionalism. If they hadn’t suspended parliament in Stormont for months on end because of their squabbling perhaps you wouldn’t be drowning.

But by moving the office you are giving opportunities to the People who wouldn't normally get these opportunities.

Same happened when the BBC moved some of its operation.

I'm happy with Burnham so far and I hope he proves a lot of you wrong and we can have 20 years of investment in public services and revive our declining industry.

I agree with this. If you have devolution you have to be prepared to let areas fail. One of the interesting things so far in England is generally power have been devolved but not responsibility - Mayors generally do the fun stuff but if like Birmingham it goes wrong the cost is picked up centrally. Devolution needs to be both power and responsibility.

Maybe it's semantics, but dismissing No 10 North as a 'gimmick' after 3 days, would come under the category of 'frothing' to me, because it's a kneejerk, emotional reaction which shuts down debate, rather than addressing the substance of the issues.

To me, a proper discussion around No10 North would be: should devolution be one of the Primeminister's' priorities, or not? Should the Downing Street operation be split, separating the day to day matters of governance from the delivery of long-term strategic priortities? If so, why? If not, why not? If the primeminister's office is to be split, should both of those operations be based in London? If not where should they be based - and why?

To me, just dismissing No 10 North as a gimmick doesn't address any of that.

Why are posters repeatedly merging the Prime Minister title into a single word, primeminister?? I find it very distracting!

I think probably because it’s an informal internet forum where people are typing quickly on phones, and not necessarily proofreading 🤷‍♀️

That’s also why abbreviations like OP are in frequent usage here, and you’ll see more typos generally than you’d see in - for example - a work setting.

(ironically, edited this bcos I spotted a typo 😂)

Oh come on. It's something pretty basic to spell correctly in a forum about UK politics!

Anyone who can’t see the benefit of decentralisation has benefitted too long from centralisation.

You asked why - and that’s my genuine opinion as to why.

I personally don’t find spelling/ grammar errors distracting in this context - hence the shrug.

The amount of fundamental misunderstandings about how our political system works certainly bother me more.

Agreed. I file anything like this under “Andy did it so it must be a bad idea” complaints. It’s never been done before, it might bring a benefit, let’s see what happens before we write him off.

Reasonable, at least arguably. But nothing to do with ‘No 10 North’.

Burnham relaunched his Westminster career saying he wants to "save" Labour - he has made other big claims for what he is going to do. So it isn't that it must be a bad idea - the onus is on him to prove that it is a very good benefit. Remember, there is no new money for anything - the existing funds are all "reprioritised" and the VAT on electricity perk is unfunded.

I mean, this is true. Our politicians are utterly ridiculous and most of them are complete hacks (but Long Live Naomi!). But the Secretary of State has also been a wet blanket with various faces since Mo Mowlam. Let’s not forget that Peter Mandelson was given the job at one point 🙄…and both Chris Heaton-Harris and Hilary Benn were rarely seen.
We are chronically underfunded by Westminster. It may not seem it on paper, but we require more investment to recover from the legacy of the troubles. Especially for the aftermath of things like Operation Demetrius, which has been a shadow hanging over our country for generations now and was conceived and approved by Westminster.

But the executive will just use any additional funds to give themselves another pay rise and a 2 year holiday, so I don’t really know what the answer is.

I know that. But general elections lead to election of a PM and Starmer was elected then which is not the case with Andy Burnham.

But general elections lead to election of a PM and Starmer was elected through that process unlike Andy Burnham.

And why exactly people were objecting to Rishi Sunak being PM in the similar way?

And what exactly are the benefits? Are they creating more jobs there, better services, improved infrastructure, healthcare or is it just a gimmick?

I don’t think two offices can be called decentralisation.
Most countries have their political leader sit in one office. UK is not even that big geographically. Why Manchester, why not Leeds or an area completely neglected?

I can see that it makes you feel different, but the system doesn't make a distinction as we have a representative democracy, not a presidential system.

If you think of the Truss situation - would you really have wanted two extra general elections so close together (for Truss then Sunak) or would you have wanted it to be impossible to switch PM without an election?