Andy Burnham’s 6 most shameless Manchester plugs

LONDON — Since becoming Britain’s prime minister, Andy Burnham — the Greater Manchester mayor for nine years — has leapt at any chance to promote his old stomping ground. POLITICO highlights six times Burnham awkwardly shoe-horned the city into his premiership. 1) No. 10 North Downing Street too London-centric? Just make a Manchester one. Manchester’s Heron House building is the site of a new No.10 North, dubbed the “situation room for growth” by the PM. Burnham has vowed to work from the building regularly, alongside other Cabinet ministers. When its inaugural meeting took place with regional mayors, the PM (who is married and has three kids, remember) said this might be the “best day of my life.” In a sign that Burnham’s living his best life, there’s even a gold “The Queen Is Dead” disk on the wall from Manchester indie legends The Smiths. “It’s definitely gone down well here,” says University of Manchester academic Robert Ford of Burnham’s regular references to the city. Burnham holds a National Economic Council meeting at No. 10 North in Manchester on July 24, 2026. | Christopher Furlong/Getty Images “It’s a clever bit of messaging, because it signals to people up here, where he remains very popular, that he hasn’t forgotten about the city that he’s just departed from, and is continuing to place it at the heart of everything.” 2) Inviting Trump to Manchester From Buckingham Palace to … the Salford Lads’ Club? During his first call with Donald Trump — a pivotal diplomatic moment — Andy Burnham offered the U.S. president an invite to Manchester. The U.K. is hosting the G20 next year, and it’s widely expected to take place in the city. Any excuse… 3) Oman-chester Looking to build some rapport with a world leader? Try the local angle. A summary of Burnham’s first call with Sultan of Oman Haitham bin Tariq Al Said shows that the PM talked about the country’s Al Batinah North Growth Hub — “inspired by the Manchester Growth Hub that the prime minister set up in his former role as mayor of Greater Manchester.” That’s two Manchesters in one sentence. 4) Boosting Mancunian bands It’s not just the gold disk on the wall of No. 10 North. Burnham’s put his love of Manchester’s musical history front and center. Burnham dances after being announced as the new leader of the Labour Party in London on July 17, 2026. | Carl Court/Getty Images He dad-danced to New Order’s “True Faith” on becoming Labour leader, and used a TikTok blind ranking of five bands which included … four from Manchester. And, of course, his official Spotify playlist during the Makerfield by-election was flooded with songs by Mancunian artists. 5) ‘Manchester of India.’ Improving diplomatic ties cuts both ways as world leaders try to get in Burnham’s good books by referencing his favorite city. During a call with Indian PM Narendra Modi, Burnham praised the contributions of Indian communities to the U.K., while Modi noted the links between the two leaders’ home cities of Manchester and Ahmedabad, in Gujarat, respectively. The Indian leader called it the “Manchester of India.” No. 10 put it in their readout of the call — obvs. 6) Chatting Manchester slang Burnham’s TikTok game includes educating the entire U.K. on the finer points of Greater Manchester dialect. In a weekend post promoting his devolution agenda, the prime minister declared he couldn’t be convinced a bread roll is called anything but a “barm” — the north-west slang for a bap. Burnham was trying to make the point that what works in one place doesn’t succeed in another — with the help of the Mancunian metaphor.