Ahead of the Makerfield by-election, John Murphy investigates Andy Burnham’s record and current campaign

Before delving into Andy Burnham’s past, we must give credit where credit is due. Taking the bus service into public control, creating the ‘Bee Network’ and lowering costs to working people in Manchester, was a welcome intervention. It’s policies like these that have made him popular as Mayor of Manchester and these should rightly be recognised.

Burnham earned his first stripes in politics straight out of university (Cambridge) in Blairite aficionado Tessa Jowell MP’s office as a researcher. Tessa proudly claimed she would ‘jump under a bus’ for Blair.

He was then a Spad (Special Adviser) for Culture Secretary Chris Smith from 1998-2001 before becoming an MP. As an MP, Burnham backed and repeatedly defended the 2003 illegal invasion of Iraq, which led to the deaths of a million people, and voted to block any investigation of that unjustifiable war.

As Health Secretary in 2010, he approved the PFI contract for the rebuilding of the Royal Liverpool Hospital – a mistake that would end up costing £1billion from the public purse, for a job that would have cost an estimated £624m under normal public procurement.

Many NHS Trusts over the years have been massively burdened by the huge debts that are incurred due to the use of PFI. The Royal Liverpool Hospital PFI contract holder, Carillion, subsequently went bankrupt. Parliamentary inquiries branded Carillion’s board’s behaviour “reckless corporate greed,” citing dividend payouts and executive bonuses despite the ballooning deficits. This year, regulators like the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have actively penalised former executives for ignoring early financial warning signs.

When Carillion collapsed in 2018, they left in their wake an unfinished project with the tell-tale signs of negligence, corruption and mismanagement. When new contractors eventually arrived on site, they found three floors with cracked and defective concrete. They also had to remove thousands of square metres of dangerous cladding. As a result, far from opening in 2017, the hospital eventually opened in 2022. Burnham may not have been able to foresee this outcome, yet he continues with a track record of entrusting large public projects to private developers.

Outside of his moves as a Westminster career politician, what did he achieve as Mayor? Did he tackle the housing crisis in Manchester? Hardly.

He opted for a neoliberal approach to housing. Backing £1 billion loans from Greater Manchester Authority to private developers to build 11,000 properties, many of which made are 1-2 bedroom flats in skyscrapers in the city centre, with less than 500 of these classed as affordable. 70% of the £1 billion pot has reportedly been funnelled to one company, Renica. A company whose owner Daren Whitaker, has recently shifted his tax residency to Monaco.

As of late, he has also explicitly backed Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s controversial immigration reforms, including a plan to significantly extend the time immigrants must wait to receive permanent residency, increasing the wait for indefinite leave to remain from five years to between 10 and 20 years; and he supports expanding the use of detention centres.

With Reform posing as his biggest challengers, in Makerfield as well as in a general election if he became Labour leader, Burnham has chosen to adopt the same failed policy of Starmer’s government of aping Reform’s racism.

On Israel, Burnham recently refused to call it’s assault on Gaza a genocide. This is in spite of Amnesty International, Oxfam, Doctors without Borders, Save the Children and over 250 humanitarian organisations describing Israel’s actions as committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza even back in 2024, and the ICC investigating Israel for plausibly committing genocide.

He has also recently advocated for increased ‘defence’ spending, arguing that it should be classified as a growth and jobs strategy. The Greater Manchester Mayor has proposed exempting defence investments from standard fiscal rules to fund military capabilities. So whilst the rest of the economy and public services receive little investment; bombs, planes and guns are prioritised.

Andy Burnham would be a ‘business-as-usual’ prime minister, who will be unable to tackle the structural and accelerating issues of inequality, housing and healthcare. Mirroring his predecessor on foreign policy, he would be looking to Washington and Brussels for diktat. His ascension highlights the challenges with parliamentary politics; when a vast majority of people are looking for change, we may get a coronation of the ‘King of the same’.