New Statesman

As Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham’s approach to governance, from bus franchising to efforts on housing and homelessness, was to intervene where markets failed to deliver fair outcomes. If he is to become prime minister – as is widely expected – I hope that his response is similar in tackling another failure of marketisation: the entrenching “poverty premium”. The “poverty premium”, the extra cost faced by low-income households when they try to access life’s essentials, means that p

For years I thought Felicity Kendal’s Barbara Good was the star of The Good Life. I was wrong. Dame Penelope Keith, who has died aged 86, stole the series. It was Keith’s magnificently disapproving Margo Leadbetter, forever appalled by homemade wine, muddy boots and suburban self-sufficiency, who proved impossible to shake. The scripts gave her some wonderfully acerbic lines, but scripts alone don’t explain why her words still crackle half a century on. She delivered them with a precision and

Next year marks the 1,100th anniversary of Athelstan’s seizure of the Kingdom of York from the Vikings and the forced submission of the remaining northern kingdoms. This event marks the birth of what we now call the political entity of “England”. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the main record of the period, merely records that “this year king Athelstan expelled king Guthfrith.” However, these seven words marked a seismic event in English, European and eventually global history. It is worth reflec

I am not used to exhibitions that begin before you enter the building. Walking down a sun-drenched street in the no man’s land between the City of London and Shoreditch, a security guard materialises from a doorway and beckons me over. Am I here for Nova? In that case, go round the corner between the pub and the anonymous office block. I realise, as I duck into an alleyway that eventually leads to the information desk and an inevitable security scanner, that his job is to scout passers-by and de

Farage superfans, who’ve spent the last month or so battling withdrawal symptoms following the mysterious disappearance of their hero, had a bumper day last Tuesday, when normality reasserted itself and suddenly he was completely bloody inescapable again. “Let’s be clear”, he told BBC Breakfast, twice, a sure sign that someone is absolutely definitely going to be clear. The £5m donation he received from crypto-billionaire Christopher Harborne shortly before he changed his mind about running for

How many of Bad Bunny’s fans actually understand what he is saying? The Puerto Rican Grammy-winning rapper, who performs exclusively in Spanish, is currently the most streamed artist in the world. The world tour promoting his sixth studio album DeBi TiRaR mÁs FoToS (2025) has consistently sold out. But it’s unlikely that every single one of those fans speaks Spanish or follows the rushed delivery and dropped s’s of the Boricua accent; ustedes becomes like ustede and last night (28 June), Londres

Disclaimer: MSD has funded and had editorial control over this article The government has rightly placed prevention and reducing health inequalities at the centre of its ambitions for NHS reform, recognising that early intervention, including during the first 1,000 days of life, is critical to improving long-term health outcomes and giving every child the best possible start.1 Yet, immunisation is still not reaching every child equally. Vaccination coverage rates are now falling below the

It may surprise people who have been reaching for fans or turning up the air conditioning that, despite last week’s high temperatures, electricity demand has not been exceptionally high. Peak demand has been around 35GW; in winter, it can exceed 50GW.Nor is this a period when the system should be short of power. It is summer, solar output is stronger, and Britain has more renewable capacity than ever. So why has the system come under pressure, with warnings about tight capacity and unusually hig

There has been growing discussion around the modularisation of skills, knowledge, behaviours and experience within occupations. At its core, this means structuring the content of an apprenticeship into defined units that support progression, taking new entrants to a level of competence from which they can continue to develop. The economic case for modularisation is clear. A more flexible, structured approach to skills development can help drive growth, improve productivity, and strengthen

Andy Burnham, former cabinet minister, is back where he started. Geographically, that is. Kicked out of his Department of Health office after the election defeat, he has moved to a spacious if characterless room (large green armchairs and plastic removal boxes compete for star billing) in the Norman Shaw Building, one of those overspills across the road from the Palace of Westminster. This is the same room he used to share with James Purnell when they became MPs in 2001. Burnham has fond memo

In the last decade, Britain has been ruled by five prime ministers. All of them failed because none of them got to grips with public sector mismanagement. While mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham experienced the frustration of trying to manage a region while shackled to Whitehall. Fixing the problem depends upon making a start on four distinct reforms. Whitehall has too much power Whitehall directly tries to control too many aspects of our economy. Within Whitehall, that power of co

For three centuries, religious difference was the defining issue of our national life. From roughly the Act of Supremacy in 1534 to the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, religion determined our conflicts abroad and tore us apart at home. In that period, Roman Catholics were cast as the religious outsider. Now, at the end of two centuries of mostly peaceful accommodation and compromise, it seems certain that Andy Burnham will be the first meaningfully Roman Catholic Prime Minister in British his

I’ve known Andy Burnham for two decades, during which time we have formed a strong friendship. I have seen him in government, out of government, leading devolution, leaving devolution, under pressure and under scrutiny. We first got to know each other when I was the Lord Mayor of Liverpool during our unforgettable year in the international spotlight as the European Capital of Culture in 2008. Being the ceremonial “First Citizen” of Liverpool was a dream come true for me. Andy was then Secr

In the mid-1800s, the rooms at Brighton’s Grand Hotel had three taps: hot, cold, and seawater. At that time, the ocean was considered a tonic for all ailments: leprosy, rickets, bronchitis – even cancer and “female complaints”. Brits flocked coastwards not only to eat ice cream and enjoy the sun, but to take in “the water cure”. Seaside hospitals and sanitoriums, like the Royal Victoria Hospital in Bournemouth, offered and promoted sea bathing. Throughout the 19th century, lidos and tide pools w

Maggie Oliver has seen it all before. “I’ve been on this treadmill – probably that’s the right word – for 15 years since I resigned,” the former Greater Manchester Police detective tells me, when we speak the day after the Makerfield by-election. The result is in: the Greater Manchester mayor will be returning to parliament. Oliver has found a moment to chat to me in between interviews with Indian TV channels. What did they want to talk to her about? “The usual: grooming gangs, why has nothi

Not long after I left university, a dazzlingly accomplished debut novelist told me that his book took the form of a mystery story because he might only get to write one novel – “so there had to be a detective”. When, some time later, I embarked on my own first piece of fiction, or the first I had a realistic chance of completing, I discovered that I had a pair of sine qua non. The book, eventually called The Boys, would need to portray large communal gatherings of the sort I had enjoyed in fi

Will he stay or will he go? That’s the question Labour MSPs are asking about Anas Sarwar. Following the Scottish party’s drubbing in the recent Holyrood election, expectations are that Sarwar could step down as leader around the time of UK conference in September. As yet, there is no firm answer. Sarwar has said he will stay on in order to “hold the party together” and continues to lead at First Minister’s Questions in his usual effervescent style. But I find it hard to believe he’s in it for

As the sweat soaks through your clothing on your Northern Line commute, you would be forgiven for believing that you had been mystically transported to the unrelenting heat of Marrakech. But it’s actually hotter in London right now.  The same is true compared to Islamabad, Havana and possibly quite soon, Cairo. This week, the Met Office issued a warning that temperatures might reach up to 40˚C in parts of Britain; heat we are far from ready for. In other cities around the world, infrastructur

Before there was “woke”, there was “solidarity”: the idea of standing with groups you weren’t a member of because you understood that you shared a common enemy – or even simply because you considered them worthy of respect and dignity. That idea is what drove Mark Ashton, an Irish communist gay activist, to raise money at the 1984 pride march to support striking miners, on the grounds that Margaret Thatcher and the tabloids hated them as much as they did the LGBT+ community. The true story of th

The urgency of climate action is no longer abstract. Across the UK we are seeing the effects: schools closing during extreme heat, hospitals declaring critical incidents, and transport networks stalling in the face of weather conditions they simply weren’t designed for. A Met Office red weather warning, issued for only the second time in our history, has underlined that what once seemed exceptional is at risk of becoming a deadly norm. 40-degree British summers are here, and they’re the new n