The Rest Is Politics: Leading - 36. Andy Burnham and Andy Street: A Tale of Two Cities

Episode Date: September 17, 2023

What is it like to run a metropolitan area? How does devolution impact the citizens of regional areas? Does party affiliation affect the decisions a mayor makes? Andy Burnham, Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester, and Andy Street, Conservative Mayor of the West Midlands, meet with Rory and Alastair to discuss their two cities, their contrasting politics, and working towards their shared goal of further devolved powers for city regions. TRIP Plus: Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to support the podcast, enjoy ad-free listening to both TRIP and Leading, benefit from discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, join our Discord chatroom, and receive early access to live show tickets and Question Time episodes. Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestispolitics. Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [e-mail] Producers: Dom Johnson + Nicole Maslen Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thanks for listening to The Restis Politics. Sign up to the Restis Politics Plus. To enjoy ad-free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestispolities.com. That's the restispolics.com. Welcome to the rest is politics leading with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Anastair Campbell. And we have got the mayor of the West Midlands and the mayor of Greater Manchester with us. So they centre on two of the great cities, the United Kingdom and the surrounding area. and they are here with us today. Now, so that is Andy Street, West Midlands, and Andy Burnham, Greater Manchester. But this is our first podcast, gentlemen, with two guests in the studio, and, annoyingly, you have the same name. Now, our listeners have already worked out

that Rory and I have very different voices and very different accents, which they're probably pretty well used to by now. So I think we should start by getting the listener accustomed the voices and accents of our guests, and that way we won't have to keep saying Andy S, Andy B, whatever. So going alphabetically, I'd like the first Andy, Mr. Burnham, to introduce himself and give a brief description of current job and a very brief potted version of life so far.

Well, thank you for having us both on, by the way. It's an honour, isn't it, Andy? I think people may be used to my no man's land northwest draw by now, so maybe they do know my voice. So I am the first elected mayor of Greater Manchester, having been in Parliament for 16 years. And in the last six and a half years since I've been doing this job, I've been energized, liberated. It has been my favourite period in my political life, for sure. We're doing some really great things, as I'm sure Andy will say, he is in the the country's third city region, it's a brilliant job and it's an exciting place to be at this moment in time in Greater Manchester. The skyline of the city's changing dramatically. We're growing

faster than the UK economy, which is a pretty good thing. So we're here to tell you why. I think both of us are here to tell you why at a time when the country feels pretty broken, English devolution is definitely one of the things that is working and is fixing things. And I'm Andy Street, Mayor of the West Midlands, like Andy B said, inaugural Mayor of the Westminsterism. One of the lovely things about this is you can shape it when you start something. In terms of accents and identification, I'm probably the only one with a mild Brummey accent, and I'm proud of that, even though it's not historically been very fashionable. Unlike Andy, though, I've not got a background in politics.

Obviously, I'm a business person first and foremost, and I guess my formative time, as an adult anyway, was in John Lewis, where I was lucky enough to be the boss for 10 years. And I still look back with incredible fondness on leading a great British brand. But equally, I've thoroughly enjoyed the last six and a half years of doing something very, very different. Well, thank you for being here. As you know, the motto of our podcast is disagreeably. So that we're going to begin by asking each of you to say something nice about the other person. Even though you're on different sides of political fence, obviously we've got a Labour, Labour mayor and we've got a Conservative mayor.

but I'm going to start maybe unfairly putting the man who's not the politician initially on the spot. Not unfairly at all. So it's very clear what I want to say positively about Andy May. There could be many things, but the thing I'll pick out for this is he is a born politician. For someone who has to learn the art, it is a compliment. You see the opportunity faster than I will ever see the opportunity. But a particular thing I want to pull out, I've been full of admiration for how he's worked, with the Conservative government for the benefit of his region.

Well, I take it as one, Andy, and thank you very much. I think we would both probably say that these roles allow you to be more yourself than perhaps other political roles, and that's one of the strength. And so I've seen you. I like to think, as you are, and I don't think I've met many people who are more decent and caring and compassionate than you. You are absolutely rooted in your place. And, you know, I've enjoyed working with you these last six or so years.

Thank you. No, I saw it. Should we finish there? Just give us a, we do like in these podcasts to talk about your past and delve into. You know all of them. You had in your black book when you were a towning street. But just give us briefly a sense of the jobs that you do. Because I do think there's a problem in our country.

that people kind of lump politicians altogether don't necessarily a lot of them know how it all works. So what does the mayor, and I still think there are people who think you're the guys who walk around in chains, as opposed to you're actually very powerful executive politicians. So what do you do? What's your job? Well, there's a number of ways I could answer that question, Alistair,

but in essence you're the figurehead for the place. And you may have responsibility over certain things like transport, policing, fire service, other things that I could mention that I have direct responsibility for. But at the same time, people look at you and say, why aren't you doing something about the airport or why aren't you doing something about, well, anything, the weather, where you name it. So in many ways, we're there to sort of, if you like, be a voice for the place. And the thing that I would say, the big difference between my 16 years in Westminster and the six and a half years in this role is you kind of start from a different premise, which is a place first approach.

So you are dealing with things differently. If you're not putting the place first and you're going with a sort of party script, you're really not starting the job in the right way. And I think Andy's done his job in that way. I've done my job in that way. And I think that therefore allows you to do politics differently. And I would say we are doing that. We're kind of putting place first. We are working differently in a pragmatic sense. And that is actually what is its great strength. And I think if Westminster operated more on a place-first premise, then I think it probably would connect better with the public. So I hate to agree too readily with what's been said, given the mission is supposed to be agreeable disagreement, but that is the nub of it. This is a different political job.

I always say my only responsibility is to champion the West Midlands. That's what people expect of there, there is the formal bit. You might call it the job description, as it says on the tin. Yes, you're responsible for public transport. Yes, responsible for the education and skills across some aspects of the region. But really, you are expected to step into anything that has an impact on your region long term. One of the things that's a bit ambiguous and what we've just heard is what exactly your executive sort of chief executive authority is. And you should be able to see that very clearly because you were a chief executive. You were somebody running a business.

What did you have to learn in the first three, four years in the job about the difference about being the chief executive of John Lewis and your current job? So the strange thing in that question, Rory, is everyone assumes there is huge, a sort of vast cavern of difference. And I would actually put it to you that there's more similarity between being a chief executive of a company and this particular political job. Chief executive of a company, the box stops with you. You're on the TV. If something's gone well, something's gone badly, you're accountable for the results. I feel accountable for our performance in exactly the same way.

But in terms of telling people what to do, I mean, presumably as the chief executive big company, I felt as a politician often that I was representing, I was championing. Yes. But I often felt more like a non-executive board member in relation to my civil servants than you would do running a company. And I think there is a subtle difference in this particular job. Very clearly, I have a chief executive and a whole civil service you might call it. They're in the West Midlands Combined Authority, which has gone from literally nothing. There wasn't a room. There wasn't a secretary, anything, to quite a substantial organisation now. And they deliver, but as always clear, they take their political instruction from the executive politicians.

So you do have that responsibility. And Andy, in Manchester, what's your relationship with the local authorities in that area? That's the only thing I think people struggle with, is who are they, Who are they meant to, in the Gillian Keegan mold, thank when everything is going well, and who are they meant to shout out when it's not? So in many ways, I'm one of 11. There are 10 greater Manchester boroughs.

And you're one of 11? Well, if you're going to sort of go about the job again in the right way, you've got to think of it that way. You could say in some ways, if you're the head of that team, you're the captain of that team. But thinking of it as a team is really important because the organisations that Andy and I lead

are called combined authorities. So unlike London, where the GLA is a sort of separate layer above the councils of London, the 30 or so councils, the 10 councils of Greater Manchester and the seven councils of the West Midlands, thank you, Andy. You know, they are our combined authority. So we are at our best when we make decisions where the team is with us. And the seven in Andy's case, the 10 in my case have all said, okay, this is the right direction of travel. because the great strength of the greater Manchester system and the West Midlands system is if you can agree with everybody, the whole city region then moves us one in that direction and it becomes a really powerful thing. I mean, I have some, to answer your question, Rory, my powers are slightly different from Andy's. You know, I have powers over policing as the police and crime commissioner.

So I've changed the chief constable. I've appointed a new one. That's my decision. But I will do it talking to the other leaders. I'm the first mayor to take the decision to put buses back under public control. And in the law, that's my decision and my decision alone. But again, you use it in a way that brings people with you. And we were a three-party state in Greater Manchester.

I know people think of it as the People's Republic. But we had a conservative leader and a Lib Dem leader until recently. It was always better to have all 10 lined up behind the decision before moving forward. And just to build on that, when I said this role is a different political role. If I think of the political balance of the West Midlands, four Labour councils, three conservative councils, one Conservative mayor, 14 Conservative MPs, 14 Labour MPs, there is an obvious point. You achieve more when you work together. Our adversarial Westminster system completely different to what we have, where we have to work

together to get the best outcomes. So one of the things, I mean, let's, we're talking in London here, and it's tempting to imagine the mayor's responsible for everything. So if the tube's not working, you're like, why haven't you fixed the signaling on the Piccadilly line? And if knife crime's going up, you know, why haven't you sorted out the police? And if there's no affordable housing, why haven't you built the affordable housing? But I guess the mayor is often tempted to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, I don't have full power over these things.

I don't control the full budgets on these things. So for me, as a voter, it's often difficult to know whether I can actually hold them responsible for the fact that signaling's rubbish on the Piccadilly line. Well, I think there's no point. arguing really at times with people. I mean, we kind of do, I guess, sometimes Andy, don't we? We'll say, well, look, I'm not directly responsible for that. But where does that actually get you? I think, you know, we've gone from a world in the English cities outside of London where people didn't have one person to complain to. And therefore, they found it hard to hold the system accountable, because who did they complain to? They didn't have an idea. When the train started going wrong

in the north of England pretty much year after we all came into our roles, the least they had one person to say, this is wrong, fix it. Now, I didn't have the power over it, but you've still got to take on that responsibility to do your best to fix it. So I wouldn't personally get too hung up on, do I have power over this or do I not? You have clearly huge power of influence over all public and private bodies within the city region. And you have something else, which I would say is our superpower power as mayors, and it's a convening power. Get everybody around the table, get the conversation going and get a solution. That, in many ways, Andy, I would say, I don't know what you feel. That's our greatest power that's given to us to bring people together. Let me just jump in, though, because

you, you, Andy Street, are in a situation now. You're Mayor of West Midlands, and you've got Birmingham City Council, a Labour Council that's going through really difficult financial problems. Is there not a part of you, even if you're not as natural a politician as Andy Burnham, is there not a part of you that's thinking, on the bigger picture here, there may be some political advantage? Yes, is the honest answer to that, Alistair. And let's be honest, we face that day in, day out in our role. We're recording this on the day where this news has broken. And literally, just before I came in here, I was thinking about the statement I was going to give to the media and it would have been oh so, so simple to slam them and mayor end with it because that's

perhaps the traditional political answer. But there's something in here that says yes, the Labour leadership of Birmingham must be held accountable for what they've done, but also the citizens of Birmingham are sitting at home thinking, and what's my mayor going to do about this? Is he going to rise above the sort of punch and duty tradition? Is he actually trying to go and do something positive to resolve this? And ultimately, I hope in that tension, I would always fall for the latter. And Andy, what have you learned about that you've been in Westminster politics, as has Rory, who tried to get out of it and be a mayor? What have you learnt from what you two are doing now that might be useful in Westminster politics trying to change from the pretty messy situation it's in now? So as I said before, Alisa, I had 16 years there.

And in my first eight years, I did what you told me and read out the script in the studio and voted a certain... This is not true. And then I kind of made my way up a little bit, as you might remember. And there was a big moment in my life, and I've got to be honest about it. It was going as Culture Secretary to Anfield on the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster. And I had been, as you know, at the other semi-final on that day in 1989. And I knew everything about how people felt in Liverpool, both red and blue parts of the city, about, you know, I've been at Hillsborough myself in 1988.

I knew it all in detail. So it kind of became a moment for me in my political journey, to what I was about and what I was trying to do. And I realized at that point, without going to all the detail, that I had to step outside of the norms, really. If I was going to advance, I couldn't, I'd made a decision that I couldn't go to Anfield without reopening Hillsborough.

My brother had said to me, only go if you're going to do something with the family's hand. Don't go if you're just going to go for the thing. You know, you've got to go if you mean business on it. And so having made that decision, I knew at that moment it put me on a different path. and I had to start operating very differently in Westminster because I'd made a commitment to the families.

And I just started, I think, to sort of understand how power works in that Westminster system or how it doesn't work often and how it had left an entire English city crying injustice for 20 years and hadn't done anything for them. So how do you overturn that? And it was when I kind of, if you like, came out of my sort of tribal comfort zone

and started to speak to people and made a connection with Theresa May particularly. and working with my good friend, the mayor of Liverpool City Region, Steve Rother, and we started to sort of work around the place and just operate differently. Well, that's when I realised that that is how change gets made, and that is where change is more likely to be meaningful and lasting. And there were other examples in my sort of second eight years in Parliament. I would say pretty much it was a game of two halves for me.

My first eight years were a traditional Westminster sort of journey. My second eight years were very different. So by the time I left Westminster, I took my first steps out of Westminster the day I walked forward to address the cop, I think. And by the time I left, I was in a very different mindset and very ready for the role I've since taken up. I wondered, Andy, whether paradoxically the fact that he was a professional politician for a long time allows him to talk more introspectively about failures, about change. And that maybe I'm going to give you an opportunity to do that. and to see if you can reflect on ways that you've changed in your life, things that you did less well in,

what you've learned along the way, why you're a different person now to who you were in the past. Oh, I think everybody changes in that way, Rory, just with the passage of age. It's that simple. I've learned that perhaps the most powerful form of leadership is leading from behind. And, you know, those classic business books about appointing brilliant people around you, that is probably the single most important piece of advice. And I genuinely think that what I've tried to do in this job

is very different to how I perhaps thought about my early days of running a company in that sense. To what extent do you think your personal life being openly gay has been important to you? How much do you talk about that? Are you a very private person? Are you someone who finds it easy to talk about those kind of things in public? It's fascinating.

Well, I think it's fascinating because the answer is it been. Go on. You're going to say, I only get asked about it in interviews. Yes, that's exactly the right answer. It is utterly irrelevant to how I do my job, to how people relate to me. And it is the fascination of the, what's the word, the commentator rather than those people on the pitch. So I genuinely think. But is that partly because am I picking up that you're quite a private person who doesn't want to talk?

I mean, because we're all fascinated by his mental health, but he talks about it nonstop. But hang on a minute. You can be a private person, but you're still very honest about your situation. There's never been any debate about that. but it honestly is utterly irrelevant to how I go about things in one sense in other sense it probably is relevant because it sort of accepts your own value set your standards so in that sense it's there deep in what makes you the person you are but in terms of wearing a sign and then people reacting to you because of that sign

I can genuinely say irrelevant and I think that's an incredibly positive thing about the society that we have the only thing I'll say about it not where it is relevant is if you look at this history, if this job had existed 20, 30, 40 years ago, you wouldn't have been able to get it and be open about yourself. So that's what I think, so it's a good thing that you feel that it's relevant, but I think it's still, I think it's still quite important that people, in a way, it's important that people think it's irrelevant. That's exactly the point I'm making. That if everyone's sitting around talking about it on the streets of Coventry and Moverhampton,

it would be a complete failure. The fact is just accepted as the way it is and you're a leader in your own right, with all of your personal experiences going back over the last 50 years making what you are, that I think is incredibly positive. But I think it's, again, the difference between the world that Andy and I are in and the Westminster world, where those personality things and the kind of scrutiny of people is much greater. And I think always, in my experience, became quite dysfunctional, really, you know, the strangers bar culture of, you know, everybody finding out everything and kind of rumor mill and gossip. When I look back at it now, I think Westminster needs a complete overhaul, a huge

overhaul. I just don't think it functions properly. It's trapped in that party-first approach. And what I was saying before is, you know, it's only when you kind of allow for collaboration, when things can move forward and move forward in a positive way. I just think, you know, the Westminster system is kind of, it's really not connecting with the public because it just watches people point scoring all of the time and people tune out from it. And I think the listeners to your podcast, I think, are in that space a bit, aren't they? That's something different, you know, the fact that you two are doing this together and the appetite for your podcast to me speaks to a kind of desire for a very different way of doing politics. As quite a private person, you're not

professional politician, you were a thing. So I'm being about in first you. What's the most interesting question you've ever been asked in an interview that actually made you think? Oh, gosh. It's probably one about failure and what you learn from failure and how failure can be a good thing actually and certainly my experience some of the toughest things is what you learn most from that can sound like a cliche but it genuinely is true

I think probably give us an example oh my time it would be working John Lowe's when I was early director you know the Star Kid and I screwed it up completely and I thought I should have been sacked but someone gave me a second chance and second chance is a very important chance is are very important in life.

So have you given second chances to people who maybe have thought of fire? I hope that people would say yes, along as people learn from their experiences. Just on the political arrangements, do you think it benefits you that there is a conservative government in Whitehall or actually is there a sense that it might sometimes hinder you? And likewise, if there's a Labour government,

is that going to be good for you as Mayor of Manchester or might that give you problems that you have to kind of wrestle with? I think it's in terms of how you play this role, being part of the governing party is definitely a disadvantage. Because I constantly have to, interests of West Midlands first, that's what I said my job was. They're the only people I'm lull to. I'm not whipped to everyone. But there's a good part of the government who think he's supposed to be doing our bidding all the time and he should be able to law to us. And they don't like it if you're not.

And you've been very critical of the whole leveling up. Occasionally. And this is the whole point. You choose your moment to have to do this. that because you only have so much political scope to do that. My assumption, Andy, may correct me, is that he's actually, if you are part of the opposition party, it is more straightforward. But as I said earlier on, he's been quite wise in working with government as well. It's a very complicated question, isn't it? And I think we wrestle with it all the time,

because I've not wanted to do the point scoring thing. So sometimes people think I am doing that. So I got accused of doing that in the pandemic, but I can assure you, when I opposed Tier 3 and the financial package they kind of put on the table trying to give people two-thirds of their wages, people who worked in bars and restaurants. That was real. That was speaking for a region that was hurting at that moment in time. And it was true to what I said when I left Westminster, that if the government get it right, I will say so. But if they get it wrong, I will call them out in the most powerful way I can with everything I've learned in my time in Westminster. I've tried to stick to that all the way through. And I think this is where, I think both

political parties in Westminster have to sort of accept our role. We can do things to keep the people of our city regions, if you like, connected to our political parties. Because we're prepared to act that little bit independently, Alistair will remember in the early days of devolution in Scotland, Scottish Labour got branded the branch office and it killed Scottish Labour for a period. Welsh Labour didn't go that way. They always kept more of a sense of weird, no, hang on, we're for the the Welsh interest first. And I think Westminster needs to understand now. It's created these roles.

You have to give people latitude to be place first. And that will be true, hopefully, when there's a Labour government shortly. So we have a lot of international listeners, and some of them will be sitting there thinking, I want to know more about these places. So I'm going to start with you, Andy. Can you say some nice things about Birmingham and the West Midlands and try to explain how you would think their distinct strengths are? And then I'm going to ask you to do the same about Manchester. Okay.

I'm going to put those jokes aside. We do have a very healthy rivalry. But actually... And some precise things. Different industrial heritage, different cultures. True of the English cities outside of London. All of them, actually. They have much more in common than what separates them.

And actually, if I do... The West Midlands, the black country culture, as a warmth and a humour, I think it's a bit of the Irish influence as well, particularly in Birmingham. There's big Irish influence in Birmingham. I mean, it's huge in Liverpool, obviously, but it's pretty big in Manchester as well. And I think there's just a sort of,

there's a cultural sort of commonality there between the English cities. And there's a sort of, you know, people are decent and, you know, and the West Midlands in many ways would mirror large parts of greater Manchester. And do you feel any tension between, you know, a city whose heritage was steel and a thousand trades

compared to a history of cotton, or differences in art and culture or anything like that. Do you feel that last today? Well, I won't get on to football because Andy's going to be distinctly playing second best there. But now, the culture is the same things. The interests of Andy's residents in West Midlands,

football, music, popular. They're the same, aren't they? They're the same things. I think there is a difference, though, when you look at Manchester. I think Manchester is different to Liverpool and other cities in the north, in that it's always had an on-timore.

entrepreneurial spirit. You know, people think back to that era, the height of Cottonopolis and, you know, the power of the city in the, in the trading environment, but it always also had a social conscience. And, you know, this is a city that never walks on by on the other side. So I proudly point to the fact that it's the home of the suffragettes, the birthplace of the trade union movement, and the place where those cotton workers refused to handle slave pit cotton in Manchester. What have you done? We've got a fine progressive tradition. Well, the first thing is we don't count first, second and third cities at all. We're sufficiently confident not to worry about their numbers. So the first thing to say just on it is, Andy's right, when you look at the data, and we'll come to some of the emotional stuff in just a minute, but when you look at the data, the West Midlands of Greater Manchester,

almost identical. So there is an obvious point here. The issues that we're facing are very similar. If you look at the GDP... Big population sizes should be. It's almost identical. If you look at the economic output, it's almost identical. If you look at some of the performances where we're weak, and we freely admit, we've still got huge issues to deal with.

We have very similar data. So there's a huge commonality there. In terms of what we've contributed to the world, well, there's no debate. Where did the Industrial Revolution start? There is absolutely no question. Where was the heart of non-conformist entrepreneurship? Well, it was in Bourneville, wasn't it? I think we're going to get the first note of disagreement in this podcast.

There's no debate about that. What do I admire, Manchester, to come to? I actually admire a confidence. And the truth is, we lost our confidence. The deindustrialisation in the West Midlands happened later than in the north, but it actually happened much faster, particularly through the late 70s and 80s. And we were left in a really weak place. Our sporting prowess fell away. Production of musical breakthroughs fell away. So at the same time, at the turn of the millennium, Manchester was finding it's cool. And we had some catching up to do. And part of my job has been to, I can't produce musical football, but I can make sure we tell

the story in a more confident way. Just to say very quickly, I grew up in Greater Manchester, actually, and was in the area in the mid-80s when we'd gone, we'd lost a lot of things and it was pretty moribund. But when I got to university, ended up in a very different world, the one I'd grown up in, I all of a sudden had people saying to me, oh, what, you saw the Smiths at Solford University? And I was like, oh my God, I've got something that they actually want. And it was like a, I remember that experience of thinking, wow, we've got things. We've got cultural capital that people in these really wealthy affluent parts of the country want from us. And that was a big thing in my life.

You know, those bands of the 80s kind of made us think, oh, hang on, we can be better than this. We can to lift our heads up a bit. Just briefly back on the political relationship. So you've had a situation recently with ULES in London, where, you know, Labor lose a by election and the party nationally seems to me to be sort of turning on a bit on Sadiq Khan, who's the same party. And the government, even though it was a Tory mayor who brought Ulez in, spots a political opportunity, and seems to me starts to turn up, not just tear up its Ule's

approach, but entire approach to the environment. And I just wondered there whether that makes you worry, Andy, about this point, Andy's point about, you know, whether you've got decisions that you make, positions that you take that your party doesn't necessarily like, and whether that becomes much, much harder to manage if you have a Labour government, and whether you're giving that any thought. I think it does become harder, for sure. And obviously, I've had a degree of difference on issues with people. But I think you have to come back, as Andy Streets said earlier, to the role. When I was elected in 2017 and then again in 2021, I was very very, you know,

very conscious that people beyond traditional labour voters had given me their support. And you just have to be clear that that is the case. And out of respect for those voters, you have to put the place first, even if that causes difficulty with your party. Now, you know, even in opposition, you know, you will have differences. And I just think this is where the British political culture needs to grow up a little. It needs to allow the fact that there are combined authorities in the big English city regions now that are cross-party in their makeup and we are doing things

that Westminster needs to understand and get used to and not kind of always try and sort of slap us down or contradict us. It just needs to understand. Sometimes we will answer them back and sometimes we will say something different back to them and that's a healthy thing, not an unhealthy thing. If you were going to be very radical

and push for much more power going down to local regions, let's say some government came along in 10, 15 years time, wrote a whole new conference, constitution and try to really lean into this question. Can you give us two or three things? I'm not saying they're necessarily things you support, but if you were going to be radical and bold and you really wanted to do decentralisation, what might they be? So the answer to this is

about money as power. And this is the Rubicon that is still really to be crossed. Now let me just explain. You said earlier on, we've got lots of international listeners. And they probably think this is a very odd conversation. Because if you were in France or certainly the US, the idea of powerful city region mayors is absolutely known. And the French model of them either being, having been in national politics, then going local or the other way around, it's just the way it is. And we've got some fantastic examples of what they've done to transform cities there. We are in the infancy of this. We've only been at this for six years. And we started from the most centralized country in the OECD by a mile. So we've just begun to swing back the pendulum

to responsibility being taken near where people live, near the seat of the action. At the moment, the way it's worked is we have asked government to give us cash. And actually, I think we've both been pretty successful in getting money out of government to improve the fortunes of our regions. I've got all the numbers, we're very proud of it. But we're still asking. The real breakthrough is if we actually raise the cash ourselves. The thing is, Andy, as well, you know, what you're saying is,

there's always a kind of radical departure for Britain to have more power in the regions. But the great city region that you lead and the one that I lead, these were the powers in the land in the 19th century. We were building the railways, inventing the railways, you know, bringing through that big Victorian infrastructure. And it was a 20th century phenomenon, I think, that the power was kind of more drawn back in into Westminster. The thing I would answer your question with, Rory,

if you were to ask me, what's the big sort of, change, radical change the country needs. We should, in my view, follow the German example of a written constitution in which there is a basic law. And that basic law requires an equivalence of living standards between the 16 lender of Germany. And I believe we need the same in this country in a constitution, which would be a new thing anyway, but there should be a requirement that there should be a basic equivalence between the different parts of England. And if there was, I think we'd live in a better country.

Andy, where are you in a written constitution? Something that leads to real, the whole country thinking about how we can change our policies. Yeah, whether or not you need a written constitution, I will freely admit I have not thought that through. But the underlying point is absolutely right here. This is holding Britain back as a nation overall.

And so this is a national crusade to bring about equivalence. And that's why we've both got into these jobs and why all the levers have to come together to achieve this. Have we also got to change our economic model? I mean, it sometimes feels to me as the way in which the Treasury calculates return on investment favors places like London. Their very narrow model makes it feel as though the pound they put in here, they get more return. They're not thinking about social justice. They're not thinking about the environment.

They're thinking about a very narrow model of financial return. I love to hear you on that. Well, you're absolutely right, Roy. you've put your finger on that. And if you had that basic law that I was describing, that economic model would have to change and you'd start to have to have investment on the social case for investment,

not just on the economic case. This came home to me when I was Chief Secretary, 2007 at the Spending Review, where Alistairdaling had asked me to put a funding package together for Crossrail, now the Elizabeth line, which I dutifully did, but said to the Treasury civil servants,

but I want a whole range of regional projects to announce at the same time. and I got one, which was a feasibility study for the redevelopment of Birmingham New Street Station, which you'll be pleased to know, Andy. I did sign off. And it's a marvelous investment. I just did the early thing. I said to the Treasury Civil Services, where is the list?

And they said, well, nothing has passed the Green Book Minister. And that's when the kind of scales dropped from my eyes, really, because the Green Book is an economic test. So the projects will score higher where growth is already highest. So you're constantly giving more tomorrow. That has been the British economic model. And that is what has got to change if we're to see growth in the English city regions, which I believe they've all got the potential to provide. It's correct where you're both getting to.

So yes, there's lots of technical stuff in the economic models, and they do need changing. But the big question is whether you put equal value on actually achieving the aspirations everywhere, outside the Southeast as you do in basically continuing the very high achievement levels in the southeast, which of course are a huge national asset. That is true. But it holds the country back as a whole that there is such under potential in the rest of the country. Okay, Andes, Rory, let's take a break. Hi, everybody. It's Dominic Zavrick here from The Rest is History. Now, some of you may have heard me on your show, The Rest is politics when Rory was away and I was filling in and enjoying Alastair Campbell's tremendous banter.

And I'm back to tell you about our new series on The Restis History, which is all about Britain in the 1970s, a period with a lot of uncanny resemblances to our own. So right now we're living through a moment when oil shocks generated by war in the Middle East are rippling through the world economy, when Britain feels like it's sunk in a bit of a malaise. People are arguing about Europe. the government has got a few issues with the trade unions, and we have a kind of, I suppose you'd say,

governing elite, a kind of political class that is really struggling to come to terms with all of these issues, and people are asking if Britain is governable at all. So there are a lot of parallels between that Britain that I'm describing, which is our Britain and the Britain of the mid-1970s. So in this series that's coming out on the rest is history, we're looking at these and other issues. We'll be talking about the rise of Margaret Thatcher, obviously a country. colossal figure in our political life even now, whether you love her or loathe her. We'll be talking about the very first Brexit referendum of 1975, a subject that I'm sure Rory and Alistair will have strong opinions about. We'll be talking about the fall of the Labour Prime Minister Harold

Wilson and we'll be talking about one of the grimmest moments in Britain's economic history, the moment in 1976 when we had to go cap in hand, as people said at the time, to the International Monetary Fund, the IMF. for a then record bailout. Now, if that sounds good to you, how could it not sound good to you? Of course it sounds good to you. We have a clip for you to listen to at the end of this episode.

And if you want to hear more, just search for The Rest is History, wherever you get your podcasts. Leveling up in a word, Andy, Burnham. It's the concept that I've waited all my political life for, the sadness is that it's been a vacuous, slogan and that it makes me despair because as Andy Streeter's articulated just now, it's what this country needs. And actually, it would bring a lot of people back to politics if leveling

up was real. And it's not just about money being more fairly spent. It's about agency, isn't it? You know, power in our places, in our nations and regions. That's what leveling up should be. And, you know, it's sad, isn't it? You know, we had the last general election fought on get Brexit done and level up the country. One has been a disaster and the other hasn't happened at all. Well, I say it hasn't happened. We're about to introduce a big change

to our transport system. We're bringing in a London-style transport. And I think it's going to be the greatest managed to combine authority that will do the biggest and most visible act of levelling up in this Parliament. Andy Strait, do you agree that leveling up

was in the eyes of those who were using it, particularly Johnson, literally just a slogan without a strategy? No, I don't. I think that's the first time there will be strong disagreement in this podcast. I think that allegation is often made.

I don't think it bears scrutiny. If you look, Andy's talked about transport, so let's use that as the example. It is definitely right for decades. The resources all went into London. And lo and behold, the productivity of London, just like any other international city that's had huge investment, improved dramatically. And regional cities were starved. That has definitely changed in the last six years. The staties we've got seven times as much money as we used to have for our transport investment.

the government have put cash on the table. They've not given us the responsibility necessarily for deciding it'll be spent ourselves, but there has been investment. I'll rephrase slightly, Andy. There's been some moves in that direction that have, we've got some productivity growth in greater much that's higher now than the England average. So, you know, to a degree. But if you really go with what that phrase means, level up,

you're talking of colossal investment. You're talking the level investment that when it's into East Germany after reunification, You know, because such is the divide. It's not being the driving mission of this government. No, I didn't say it had. But you said it was just a slogan, and I do not agree with that. If you look at what Michael. Johnson it was.

If you look at what Michael Gove has done consistently, we talk about the cash over redistribution, but there are also issues to do with private business where it is located, going back to what Andy said about the 19th century. That's what drove the cities of outside London, a vibrant private sector. The efforts surrounding inward investment outside London have been good. I can prove you more business has come in, more investment has come in as a result of that. That will drive opportunities in the West Midlands. If I look at the improvement of the qualifications of our workforce so that we can attract those people,

if I look at the way in which R&D has gone into our universities, some of those long-term determinants, there is a positive story. One thing that she said I thought was very interesting. Only one. No, many interesting things, but just in the last answer, was about the way in which you didn't feel that necessarily you had the full decision about how the investment worked. My intuition is that industrial strategies work best when they're more decentralized, they're more local,

when it's more flexible control, because you know your place best. What would it take to shift to a model of industrial strategies where you, as examples of people, the two Andes, had more control over the local application. Give us a sense of what a good... Give me one industrial strategy in Birmingham and one from Manchester that I can get my head around.

Pleasure. And, Roy, this won't be unfamiliar to you because in Theresa May's day with Greg Clark's Secretary of State, our two regions were the pilots for having regional industrial strategies. I was a huge believer in them. And even though the national government has moved away from them, we have not. We call it our plan for growth for the West Midlands. And what it does, to answer your question head on, it chooses the clusters where we have a competitive advantage, not just against Manchester and Liverpool, but it's a question. And against Boston and Barcelona and everywhere else and their fast-growing areas. Give us an example from you and then an example from Manchester. I'll give you four straight at the top of my head. Logistics really strong. Of course, elements of professional services, aerospace manufacturing, and the biggest one of all for us, electric vehicle manufacturing. Very much.

So I'm going to talk about an enabling policy for a good industrial strategy, and that is technical education. When we had the recent negotiation with Michael Gove, and absolutely, Andy, I will say Michael has been a big supporter, hasn't he, And fair enough, he helped us bring through a new trailblazer set of powers, which we appreciated. We said to Michael, we need technical education at the top. Because when investors are talking about coming to Greater Manchester, the biggest reason why they may say, we're not sure, is this thing about can you get the people? Can you get the talent?

We want to bring through the country's first integrated technical education system. In simple terms, at 14, two clear equal routes for young people in Greater Manchester. So one academic university route, the other technical towards qualifications in the world of work. You know, technical education has always played second fiddle in this country. It's always been the poor relation. And the reason why it's never worked is you can't fix it from a national level. The needs of the labour market in Greater Manchester are different from the West Midlands. Therefore, you have to have a devolved approach or you will never fix technical education.

I've said I want a Greater Manchester baccalaureate so that, you know, young people growing up in Greater Manchester, and know what GCSEs we're saying to them, those are the ones you should take to get the best jobs in the tech sector or in the green sector. And inevitably there's a kickback from Whitehall, but we're going to stick to our guns on it. We want to fix technical education

and create parity between academic and technical. In your last answer, you mentioned Brexit. I'd like to ask you both, what your senses of what Brexit has done to the country as a whole and then more specifically to your regions. Well, when I was queuing at Parliament, at airport to have my passport stamped and it took, I wasn't thinking it was turning out

great, I'll be honest with you. No, it's, it's, it personally, I think, you know, without rerunning the referendum, the decision to go for a hard Brexit has been utterly disastrous and has damaged us immensely, I think. And I'll just give you one example so that it's not rhetoric. Let me give you a practical example. You know, I've mentioned it. We're, we're world famous for our music industry.

That is one of Greater Manchester's top exports, but it's actually one of the UK's top exports. We are dominant in that. So what sense is there in turning down the offer of visa-free access for our musicians to Europe? I mean, what on earth drove that other than ideology and rhetoric? And that's damaged our music industry. So I was no Brexiteer, as I think you all know, but maybe listeners don't. but my region was the biggest pro-Brexit region in the country.

So I suppose, as Andy said, no point going back. The decision was taken, was democratically taken. There has been a sense of, and there still is, in parts of the West Midlands, a sense of empowerment. It actually was a decision that was genuinely taken by the people. That might seem an odd thing for me to pull out, Alistair, but I do genuinely come across it regularly. But economically?

Economically, the situation is very clear that it was damaging to the West Midlands. Being the export capital of the UK, higher proportion of our GDP from exports than anybody else, our exports fell away dramatically. The good news, not that I voted for it, is the recovery in exports in the last year has been quite dramatic. And we're almost back to where we were pre-Brexit. What are we going to do? Just this is probably my getting towards a very final question from me, And then back to Alastragan, what do you think about the bigger world?

A lot of the bet around Brexit was we were going to move away from the European Union. We were going to get closer to big growing economies like China. And six years later, that feels very different. Chinese economy not growing the way it was. We can see defence and security problems with being too close to China. And we're beginning to think maybe we need to be closer to some of our European neighbours. What is it about big changes in the big global economy, Southeast Asia, China, the US, India, that might affect first Birmingham and then Manchester,

then back to our stuff. So you picked up India. We've had to make some bets. One of the things about this job is resources are not very plentiful, and you have to choose what you're going to do. After Brexit, we chose we're going to focus on our relationship with India. It's paid off. Record inward investment to the West Midlands last year.

India, for the first time, the biggest investor in the West Midlands ahead of the US. And obviously, if you think of their growing sectors and some of our strengths is a real piece. So that mega economic piece has paid off. Tell us but how does that come together. Their sectors, your sectors. What sort of things they're investing in and how does that work for them and for you?

They're investing in a lot of the advanced manufacturing sectors. And the things that they are most attracted by, again, linking some of the conversations together, is the R&D in our universities and the skilled talent that we have. That's why we have to keep working on that. So if I think about the 21st century and, you know, what are the big driving forces of change? It's digitalisation and decarbonisation. and where are those changes happening most? They're in cities.

Cities are leading those changes. We're bringing that stuff through more quickly. And so Michael Bloomberg has been a big influence, actually, and Steve Rotherham, I think Andy's had some connection with them. He connects mares them around the world. And what you get a sense of Rory when you're in those settings is actually city-to-city people-to-people relationships and then the diplomacy that falls out of that

is actually where it's at, really. because if you're always doing everything through the prism of national government and the tensions that come with the UK Irish relationship or UK France, politics gets bound up in that and progress stalls. So it's been said, I think, by a mayor of the US, that the 19th century was the century of the empire state, the 20th century was the century of state national government, and the 21st century must be the century of the city

because they're the drivers of change. And English cities are not punching their weight on the world stage, Michael Heseltine, I think, has been, you commissioned a report, Andy, didn't you, that said, that said this. You know, free up the English cities to sort of really get in that game of driving digitalisation, decarbonisation. And then I think we will re-industrialise the West Midlands and the north of England in a good way. My final question, Manchester, I think Andy Street, you would accept, has got two football brands a bit bigger.

Yes. You'd accept that? Okay. For now, but what's the question I said? So the question is always submittential. The villa are on the way back. I'll have battered Burnley. I'll give you that.

So that Manchester football gives you something that is very, very powerful globally. I'm not saying that Villa isn't a big name in Birmingham City in its own way, especially now you've got Tom Brady involved. Yeah, yeah. Watch this space. Okay, okay. Well I want to ask you is about big moments and big events. So both of your cities have done the Commonwealth Games in the recent past.

I just wonder what you get out of those. And the reason I asked that is because I don't even have seen recently a couple of cities pulling out of bids for the Commonwealth Games, including Melbourne. One would you think about trying to step back in? Did you get something very, very lasting and enduring out of that? So we watched with admiration how Manchester dealt with it in 2002. I was enthralled with how London dealt with the Olympics in 2012. So when the opportunity came for us for the Commonwealth Games, we were going to win. it. We were going to win that bid and that was it. And it's one of the lovely things about this

job is the longevity of tenure. How long do cabinet ministers stay in their post? We've both been doing this for six and a half years. We hope to continue to do it. And you are able to see these things through. And it is very clear that the Commonwealth Games has been an incredible success for Birmingham and the West Midlands. We've done lots of research on it. The brand of Birmingham has been improved internationally. And lots comes from that. Where do students apply to? Where do businesses apply to? All of that. where to tourists go and it has got a long-term advantage. So I would say to anyone who was going to do it and is now pulling out fools. And just one little post script, which you'll love, the money that we got back from the underspend on the games, we're actually now using it for all

sorts of things, the legacy. But one thing we just announced last week is we're hosting what they call Sport Accord, which is where the International Federation of all big sports, including the Olympic Committee, come for their annual conference, a wonderful showcase. We would not be doing that if we hadn't done the games. Well, and I would agree. I mean, 2002 was massive for Manchester and obviously it created the infrastructure that supports Manchester, Manchester City

and everything that's grown in that part of East Manchester. The transformation there is just phenomenal. People couldn't recognise what was there before. I think, you know, this is where the mayor gets, a bit boastful towards the end of the discussion. I think I would say we are the biggest football city in the world. we have got two clubs that are Champions League winners. Now only you know this.

Who else can say that? Milan can say it. I don't think Madrid can even say it. Because Athletics, I've never won it. So, you know, we are a colossal football power. And whenever I go around the world and I've been to India, as Andy has been, we'll be going to Japan later this year, the football clubs come with us.

So we deploy our cultural capital very much on the world stage. and everyone wants to talk. Well, they want to talk about Manchester United, mainly, I have to say, but city obviously are becoming an irresistible force. But no, but both, obviously, you know, the power of those two, and often they will come together,

and they're great, actually, the way they engage both clubs in the life of the city. But then you go to South by Southwest, as I did earlier this year, and you introduce new order from the stage. I mean, we have got big, big cards to put on the table that kind of get noticed, perhaps more than some of London's cards.

And you're still traded off. My name's say Ali Campbell. He's going to say, yeah, and of course, on the Yosport. But I will make a date to come back to see you when the villa are in the top four, which is clearly where we're heading. Are you a Villa Faland? Of course. And Birmingham City have fulfilled what they have to do, and it's a break-room.

But the point about these big brands being ambassadors is absolutely right. And the cultural history is part of that as well. And we've tried to bring, we have less strength in football at the moment, but in terms of culture, cuisine, all these things can be brought in. Peeky blinders. Good for Birmingham. You go to New York and you talk about, yes, and you talk about, you're talking about, you're definitely, you've been to Birmingham away at San Andrews. Very accurate. You go to New York and you talk about Brum. They talk about peeky blinders. Yeah, sure. Huge. I think Rory's just sat here getting more and more jealous that you're doing these

jobs because it's the one that you want to do as London Mayor, but it didn't quite work out. I would have loved to be a mayor. I think you've, do it. Both of you have done such amazing job. So it's a real privilege to be with you both. Thank you. And I'm a great admirers for you both. Thank you, thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you. So, Rory, our first double header, us two with two others. What do you make of that? Well, I thought it was absolutely lovely. I mean, I actually really thought that Andy Burns' analysis of Westminster and my sense of what I've been writing about, think about it's almost identical. I mean, I've always loved Andy Burnham and admired him. But listening to him, I really did think, my goodness, I'm moving.

to Manchester. I think there's something so interesting about what could happen. It's probably the most exciting thing in British politics. It's the one time you picked it up that I was getting excited. The one time I felt in the last few weeks doing the podcast, I really want to get back into this. I'm interested in this. There's something happening here that I really want to get involved in. See, I felt that. And it was interesting. So, for example, put into one side, Andy Burnham's ridiculous claim that he used to do everything I told him to do. I thought it was interesting, for example, if you think about the people that he mentioned really, really positively, Theresa May, Michael Heseltide, Andy Street and the work that he was doing, he's definitely found a kind of new way of doing this. And I think the point he made, this is what we were trying to say about Sadiq Khan, and who les.

And I get this. Look, we were the people who tried to destroy Ken Livingston because we didn't want him to run. But the central parties have got to embrace this thing properly and understand it is about being different. And I really hope that Labor embrace this in a way that thus far I don't feel they are. Yeah, I do think that's right. I think there's two challenges. One is that sometimes my friends in Labor feel that things are quite tightly controlled, that three or four people in the centre are running everything.

And they're not really making the most of people like Andy Burnham. I think he's become, I don't know what he was, but he's become an extraordinary communicator. It's a lot of charisma there. There's a lot of confidence there that labor could be using. And I think the second thing is, let's lean into the formal package. One of the things he was saying as we were walking out the door is they're ready to go now. They've got the delivery mechanisms ready. If you've given the money, they can deal with it.

That might not have been true 20, 30 years ago. But if a new government came in that really wanted to make something of this, Manchester, Birmingham, you could give them the resources and while they could fly. Andy Street, first time I'd met him, very not like a politician, really, was he? No, but paradoxically, it's something that I think you noticed when we were in. interviewing Musfer Suleiman, sometimes the people who aren't politicians can sometimes seem more cautious and sometimes a little bit more defensive in a politician. Yeah, yeah.

I sense to be getting a bit prickly with your private life explorations, which is fair enough, I guess. But I thought both of them, though, had a real, a genuine passion for what they're doing. And I felt as an interviewer. I mean, it was my fault as an interviewer. I should have realised earlier on he didn't want to talk about his private life at all. But as soon as I got him on to industrial strategy in Birmingham, boy, was he interesting, fluent. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was very, very good.

I think we should think about another double pairing at some point. What about the Israeli ambassador and the Palestinian ambassador? Well, I can assure you there would be much less of the sort of, I would like to pay tribute to my dear friend and colleague across the table. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, thanks a lot. See you soon. Thank you.