Echo Comment on Andy Burnham’s first speech as prospective PM

“Growth in every postcode and hope in every heart,” he finished, but his speech consisted of more than uplifting banalities.

At its heart was a vision – something Sir Keir never successfully sold us. It is of a changed, decentralised Britain with vibrant, local figures like mayors making decisions tailored to their local areas and local civil servants then pushing them through, with a new department, No 10 North, based in Manchester, acting as the “nerve centre of a rewired Britain”.

For decades, The Northern Echo has argued there needs to be more devolution, so decisions can be made to meet local needs rather than be imposed by London or Brussels.

Indeed, the Tories under Boris Johnson made Darlington a testbed, moving out a quarter of the Treasury. Mr Burnham is now to spread that model further.

It is a profound change which will have to overcome resistance, from London, from the civil service and from surprising quarters – although a Leeds MP and so just down the road, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has not made the Treasury in Darlington a second home.

It will need new structures, new ways of scrutiny (it was a little worrying that Mr Burnham declined to take media questions) and, of course, it will take investment. How, for example, are all those new council houses he promised to be paid for?

After the drab, awkward days of Theresa May, Boris Johnson and his promise of “levelling up” was a real blast of change. Mr Burnham’s belief that things, and places, can only get better is going to be a breath of fresh air – but how long will it survive the difficult choices of governing and the highly-taxed country’s lack of money?