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.

Care to explain why Labour think North Sea oil is fine when Norwegians extract it but not when we do? Or why steel produced in China and shipped half way around the globe is better for climate change than steel produced in the UK?

If he is considering all geographic areas of the UK why is he insisting on calling Manchester The North?

They weren’t great, but this lot are a LOT worse. They told so many lies to get in power which they then went back on, for example. After the election result was announced I told my husband I bet they will conveniently find a budget gap that needs plugging by tax increases. And sadly they proved me right.

Labour are toast, and thanks to them, we are all facing a Reform government in 2029.

You are putting words in my mouth. Never said Norwegian oil is better. I literally said we need to invest in cleaner energy and better insulated homes. I currently emit close to zero carbon in the summer in my house. Winter's harder, which is exactly why insulation and heat pumps matter. Luckily I managed to afford the initial setup but many can't, and that's where government subsidies can help out. Solar on every roof, home battery, heat pump, electric car. Appreciate logistically some people can't have this kind of set-up for various reasons, but if 25% of homes in the UK can adopt this model, that's millions of households no longer at the mercy of oil and gas prices, and a lot less CO2 pumped into the air. Ultimately better air quality for all.

Indeed. I moved to the south east in 2012, redundancy forced me back 5 years later. I hate it. There’s fuck all decent jobs or anything to do. To get decent food/entertainment you have to go to the cities.

A small example of the difference in opportunity is libraries. The town I first lived in when I moved has a library that is open 7 days a week, the earliest it closes is 4pm on Sundays, it’s open past 5pm for 5 days and closes at 5 on Saturdays. The libraries in my (deprived) town only open for 4 hours a day, closing at 2:30 so useless for anyone who works (unemployment is high though). The main one in the town centre is open until 4pm. Someone on Reddit in the town was looking to set up a chess club and asked about the library but when it was pointed out that no one who worked would be able to attend, the idea was dropped.

There is no opportunity here. They closed the mines and heavy manufacturing/engineering and nothing came to replace them. That was nearly/just over 40 years ago and it gets worse and worse.

I wish every day that we could afford to move back to the south east.

I just wish the government would stop syphoning money away from the SE. Or if they won't, to do something actually useful with it.

I’m a lifelong rural Southerner ( West Sussex).
I now have family members living in the Midlands and on the English Scottish border.
I think the north feels noticeably different. I think places like Blackpool are like Portsmouth 40 years ago. The transport infrastructure is woeful.
But theres so much else going on. Different places feel different . The south feels like just versions of a London ideal.

‘Ugly regional accent’

I am cringing and have second hand embarrassment for you. No accents are ugly. They are accents and should be celebrated for all their diversity.

All of the south feels like versions of a London ideal?!

Maybe West Sussex does as it’s part of the wider commuter belt, but it certainly doesn’t feel anything like that where I am in the southwest.

I don’t think it matters what he says, in all honesty. He will be able to do very little with the national debt at such a frighteningly high level. If he raises taxes, things will only get worse. There are cost cutting measures he could take, but it sounds like he’s unwilling to ride that particular bull. So, the merry go round will continue.

Good point OP. I hope one of his researchers reads mumsnet!

Also not all parts of London are wealthy! And yes it is fantastic 💚

Right?! It’s not just going to be Northerners voting in the next election is it 🤷‍♀️

Grow up. Geographically, Manchester is not the north of the United Kingdom Inverness is. Colloquially, Manchester is referred to as the North. See road signs on the M6, the oft used term Northern accent, refer to the Elizabeth Gaskill novel North and South it is a term widely used to refer to the North West of England. It is part of common parlance.

This faux outrage at the exact geographic location is tiresome. You have not made a killer political point.

Grow Up and join you in ignoring vast swathes of the population and half the country because you think you are The North and haven’t seen a map?

It might comes as news to you but road signs pointing to The North on the M6 don’t start pointing south when you pass Manchester.

Manchester is in the north and has been referred to as being in the north of England my whole life and your whole life, Andy Burnham hasn’t made that up for a podcast ffs. I can’t believe people look at the success of Manchester and instead of feeling pleased that the plan is to share that around they are just scared that there might not be enough to go round. I think you have to be realistic though and if you live somewhere remote that is not going to be able to reinvent itself as touristy or have an industry that can be run from it then it will be nigh on impossible for anyone to make it economically prosperous. That probably holds for most countries in the world tbh, I don’t think the Labour government are wholly responsible for late stage capitalism.

North of England is not the north if the UK and AB is PM of the UK not just England. The fact you have been ignorant of people living further north than Manchester in the UK your whole life doesn’t reflect well on you.

EVERY POSTCODE. Like AB I want growth and prosperity in EVERY POSTCODE. Read my posts, I have spoken about the SW and other areas of the UK. I believe it is massively important to not ignore the rest of the country. You however, seem to be under the impression that making a point about geography is killer political insight.

Read my post and acknowledge I said Inverness is the north demonstrating I have seen a map. I was referring to common parlance - accepted terminology to refer to something with a common meaning. This is a total and utter distraction, we need to be looking at poverty in the costal town as from illfracombe, Great Yarmouth to Blackpool. By devolving power local people can make local decisions.

Argue the political point. If your big argument is that AB believes Manchester is the geographical north and that is the best point you can make what the hell has political discourse descended to. We’re talking bout poverty and political power and all you have is Manchester isn’t Castle Fucking Black.

That’s my point , the further away you get ,the more individual the country becomes.

London has ruined my bit of the world. They have come in droves to commute. My once lovely town is quiet all week ( shops and restaurants closed) and then completely over run Thursday to Sunday as London enjoys the countryside.
See also Brighton. Just grotty rather than smart as the opportunistic London set replaced the established wealth.

Brighton ? Dead Mon- Thurs Brighton is a thriving City with 2 Univesities and a huge amount of culture, I do not relate to what you are saying at all. Brighton is not satellite of London it very much has it's own culture and character- if you had said Woking or Guildford..

For more years than I can remember, successive governments have given the capital more support than elsewhere in England, tbh I'm glad someone is finally supporting the North and money is coming this way.

Common parlance reinforces false beliefs. It is clear many people believe that he is focused on The North despite the fact that there is another 540 miles more north between Manchester and Unst he seems to be ignoring. Even Mancunians would not think so if he established his No 10 in The North in Islington despite that being The North to Londoners.

It is a bit like them saying ‘we will tackle child poverty and to prove this we are setting up a centre in Richmond upon Thames’.

What are you talking about? AB is not ignoring the other 540 miles. You are correct that some people ‘believe’ that. You may believe it, despite AB saying repeatedly and clearly he is concerned for all of the UK.

Politicians can’t win, he has explained in simple language on numerous occasions that he is concerned about all of the UK, a key piece of policy is devolution, and yet your argument is you BELIEVE he thinks Manchester is the geographical north of the U.K. It’s madness and demonstrates the dire level of political discourse.

TBH if he believed Manchester was on Mars but he made good policy to reduce poverty and increase growth I wouldn’t care. I am more focused on policy personally but you do you.

Yes I’m completely unaware there is more than Manchester that can be classed as north. I thought that once you got to Crumpsall you actually fell off the edge of the world. Some people are not doing northerners any favours on this thread with their bullshit 😁

I live in the south west of Cornwall. There has never been much support for Labour here and a big majority were in favour of Brexit. I don't know if they still are. Until Brexit the region received massive support from the EU, including Objective One funding as one of the poorest regions in the EU. A recent report pointed out that educational attainment is lower here than in most of the rest of the country. I like Andy Burnham and agree with most of what he has said so far. But he does need to realise that places such as Cornwall, which suffered from deindustrialisation far earlier than parts of the North, are equally deprived and it's simplistic just to talk of a North South divide.