Poverty isn’t just a Northern issue Andy.

[SummerSummerSummertime]

Caught the Prime Minister on a podcast this week and he’s really stuck on a constant, hyper-focus on the North. Ok we get it, things are bad up there (former industrial heartlands etc) but as PM for the whole country, he needs to remember that hardship doesn't stop at a regional border if he wants to maintain national support.
Severe deprivation is happening right across the country, not just in northern heartlands:

London: The capital holds some of the highest actual poverty rates once astronomical housing costs are factored in.

Coastal Communities: Southern seaside towns face deep, hidden deprivation, low wages, and crumbling infrastructure.

The South & Midlands: High living expenses, struggling high streets, and insecure work hit low-income families everywhere.

He also claimed on the podcast that past governments just saw the North as "different" and forgot about it. But by constantly banging on about the North, isn't he just fuelling that exact same fire?
If he keeps treating the North as a special case, he's actively reinforcing a regional divide. Moving focus or power from Whitehall to Manchester might sound great on a podcast, but it does absolutely nothing for a struggling family in a southern coastal town who feel just as invisible to this new government as they did to the last one.
Poverty is a national crisis, not a regional identity.

If Andy wants to keep broad support, his messaging needs to acknowledge and support struggling communities everywhere.

Agreed OP.

As with all Labour govts, they blithely ignore rural poverty. They think the countryside is somewhere pretty that rich people live and can't be arsed to look at the very real issues like widely spaced senior schools and 16yos who cannot go to school to take a'levels because there are no buses and the councils won't pay transport for the over 16s.
They think everyone can move to towns when skill sets are rural-based and anyway if everyone shifted to towns then we'd have no food.
AB is even worse than most Labour PMs in that he's only interested in northern urban poor.
Roll on 2029 before he does irreversible damage.

How many times does he have to say “every postcode” before you hear it. When asked about his life he reflects on Manchester- obviously. When making statements he nearly always mentions spreading power to “every postcode”.
Bloody hell southerners are chippy - I thought that was our job in the North. The focus switches from London and the squealing doesn’t stop. Every postcode, all the areas of entrenched poverty. It needs to be improved everywhere. He has said this multiple times.

I’m not a Burnham fan by any stretch, or Labour for that matter. But, I’ll be honest, it’s rather refreshing to see politics be defined as Northern-Centric. I was born and raised in South Yorkshire at the beginning of the 80’s and experienced all that South (east)-Centric politics brought communities like ours for decades. I don’t think Burnham will accomplish much in areas other than Manchester regardless but surely you can see that those areas have been ignored for so long and how directing the focus on areas in the North and an attempt to actually achieve ‘levelling up’ is not a bad thing?

Need to keep some perspective, 19 percent or nearly 1: 5 of the population live within a 25 mile radius of London. 12 - 14 million people and most don't live in Kensington and shop in Harrods.

Well perhaps if rural areas voted for a party that wanted to help poverty they may have MPs fighting their corner. Most rural areas voted for Tories and for many, many years have had Tory governments who have screwed them over. No bus services in rural areas was Tory policy and now it’s ABs fault he isn’t improving rural bus services quick enough.
Fourteen years of Tory austerity, cutting rural services, making life more difficult but it’s ABs fault for not sorting out in a fortnight.

Also, Southern is not the same as London, there is quite a bit of England below and to the left of London that gets lumped in with it, when its culturally and economically a very different place.

Exactly this!

If a Prime Minister who spoke with the same accent that every Prime Minister since the 1970s has had, said: "When I say we need good growth in every postcode, I mean every postcode across the whole of the UK. Every place and every person matters.", as Andy Burnham has said multiple times in multiple speeches and multiple op eds, would anyone be saying, “oh, but he only means the urban North”?!

You might not believe he - or any politician - can pull it off, but that’s a different (and valid) conversation.

Exactly this.

This! And there is a lot more to “the north” than Manchester.

I live in Devon and it’s riddled with poverty and the the government usually forget anything after Bristol!

For decades and many successive governments the south east has had more focus, more investment and more support than any other area.

Burnham has been in charge 5 minues and seems to look like he won’t do that any more and people (from the south east) are up in arms about how unfair that is.

I don't expect him to sort it out in a fortnight. But I do expect our National PM to recognise the issues which he quite clearly does not.
His focus on one area of the country and one part of the economy only perpetuates what has gone before.
His appointment of Angela Eagle as environment secretary sums it up - she has precisely zero experience of rural affairs or the environment. Says it all.

Everyone forgets the South West.

House prices considerably higher than the north West but salaries the same. We are especially impacted by seasonal economies, lack of investment and second home ownership.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-house-price-index-for-may-2026

https://www.statista.com/statistics/416139/full-time-annual-salary-in-the-uk-by-region/?srsltid=AfmBOoqdU--DANgofYkRRZ954UP1w21fDWVMe_ByL7uAN77dRaum2hCS

There was an article in the news this week about the educational weaker outcomes in the south west as well.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c39e7n8rvd2o

Yes, but who is saying the South is all the same as London? Or that the North is all the same as Manchester?

Andy Burnham very definitely isn’t - that’s almost the opposite of what he’s saying. His whole argument is that local leaders understand the specific needs of their areas best, and therefore should be given more power.

Read the post by @Visiblyabove25 she quotes AB saying “every postcode” how is that not recognising the issue? He said “every place and every person matter” - he has recognised the issue and discussed it. The North West has areas of significant rural poverty and seaside areas like Blackpool with entrenched issues. How is that not recognising the issue?
Now, you might not agree with what he chooses to do about rural poverty, he might totally ignore it like the Tories have done, he might make it worse as austerity did, he might cut vital services as Thatcher did, but to claim he has not recognised it is simply incorrect.

Yes, the SW has deep ingrained, multi generational poverty made worse by second home owners etc. It is not a topic I can understand as I’m not from there, correct. What AB is saying is that local people, voting for local leaders who do have a deep understanding of the issue is better than someone from London or a big Northern city making decisions.
He wants to empower local people to make local decisions.

There is an International Mens Day! https://internationalmensday.com/

The difference though is if you live in Clacton you have the option to commute into London where well paid work exists, even more so that the poorer people in London do have opportunities, whereas up in the ne there’s areas with intergenerational unemployment, you would need to leave your county for work, there simply is insufficient employment opportunities in commuting distance. Unless you have been there it’s hard to really understand how it is different to not having a good job in London.

He will be used to saying that the North suffers. It doesn’t help that many people have a different idea of where the North is. Many people who live in the Midlands call themselves Northerners. They aren’t.
And it will have to be quite a change for him to remember that he now serves all.
Having lived in the North and the South the divisions are not that much financially. They really are not. North Yorkshire is rich. Cheshire is. Much of Yorkshire does very nicely thankyou. As does Manchester.
There are poor parts. But there are poor parts everywhere.
But you will be hard pushed to explain that to someone who lives in the North.
I am afraid they have been told a great deal about the disadvantages they have, how they don’t have the opportunities. How the South gets it all. And they choose to believe it. How everyone in the South is well off and live in big houses with big gardens. And purchased their homes for a small amount comparative to earnings. They know deep down there are some poorer people in the South. But not the extent of it.
They don’t know about reality of the poverty that exists. I am afraid in my experience of living there nor do they want to.
He has found it awkward a bit of late. Manchester has had the media lens fall on them. They realise people can see the money, the businesses doing well, the flats people are buying. And no, it isn’t all recent. There is a bleak side to Manchester for sure, but there is an awkward mismatch to the message about poverty and what people see through the media now.
And Andy B has to not tailor his conversations to repeat what he knows his previously Manchester audience are used to hearing. And that will not come easily.

I disagree. One thing I can say with experience is that people who commute into London pay a fortune in travel to do so. Not just money but time.
When I worked in the North most people I knew would not contemplate a commute of more than 40 minutes door to door. The idea of an hour and a half each way blew their minds.
Much of the Civil service is located in the North. They have airports, huge shopping centres in Manchester and Sheffield. And people have the money to keep them going.
I would also add that often London in particular ( which is not all the South), attracts global recruitment. So people are competing not locally, not even regionally but internationally for a job.
To add too, much of Clacton is either unemployed or retired. Frinton is largely retired in population.

It’s not awkward at all. Manchester has been a bubble of success in many ways due to his policies. Yes, still lots of very poor areas but the city region has been more successful than other similar areas because of his policies.
How is that awkward? I led my City so well it did better than other cities. Most Mancunians realise we are doing better than other areas, despite the ever present deprivation. AB is absolutely not presenting Manchester today as a failure, he is saying every big city, every area, should be able to succeed. Every postcode.

There is also more to the North than the North of England.

The awkwardness comes in the often stating how poor and hard done by in terms of opportunities there are and the mismatch with the reality that can now be seen via the media.

They cannot continue to say the first anymore. That is the awkwardness. You cannot continue to say the area in the North is poorer and needs levelling up to the South. Whilst also saying everything is booming and everywhere is a bubble of success.

He’s stoking division and our country, and the world in general, has had quite enough of that. I agree that there are many very prosperous pockets in the north and many poor pockets in the south. He may say every postcode to cover his back, but the poor Me northern stereotype is the one he is milking to the bone and it’s going to backfire on him.

It is really hard to engage with this in good faith.

Was it “poor me Northern stereotype” when George Osborne talked about the need for a Northern Powehouse? Was it stroking division when Boris Johnson made “levelling up” central to his agenda?

Or is it only divisive to point out we are one of the most politically and fiscally centralised countries in the developed world, when you have a Northern accent?!

It’s completely legitimate to critique the substance of Andy Burnham’s proposals, but at least try to play the ball and not the player.