Labour’s Andy Burnham will struggle because his agenda requires ideas to sink into how we think and feel about things. This isn’t just about London, a centre of economic activity for us all in the UK, but also the local areas he’s so keen to reach by the power of policymaking.
The coordination is tantamount to a refocusing of Number 10 priorities anyway. A backbone of it would have to be something akin to an office centred on central government activities up in the north of the country. This would be the start. What would follow would stun people.
To think a Prime Minister is able to re-prioritise the country is to believe in a socialist revolution. But this Labourite populism needs to be put in real terms to understand its threat. It entails a collectivisation of most if not all the bodies and small organisations that make us a wealthy place.
These will not comply, and so Andy Burnham will fail in his efforts this time. He doesn’t have a mandate as popular as he believes. Labour is running on less gas than it had at the start of Starmer’s tenure. This big plan is projected to buckle under the weight of an office that needs public support as a backbone for projects of note.