Burnham’s wish to devolve more power and spend more money in the regions will bring slower growth and less economic success.We know this from the 25 year experiment with devolved government, more public spending and borrowing in Wales and Scotland since 2000. The GDP results from ONS show the following for 2000-2025
England GDP plus 48.5%
Scotland. plus 41.2%
Wales. plus 33.8%
These facts have been set out with good charts to highlight the differences by Facts4eu.
These are huge divergencies showing there is a big prosperity cost to dear devolved government. Doubtless many Scottish and Welsh voters want to carry on with it, and that is their democratic right confirmed by referendum. Voters in England see from that that we do not want the economic harm even bigger government brings. In England voters voted down North Eastern government when asked in a referendum and were right to do so.
Andy Burnham also needs to consider the contradiction in his policies. He both thinks more devolved power to regions help, and thinks more laws and taxes should be set by the EU through the EU re set give aways. Both these propositions cannot be true as they contradict each other. Both can be wrong, and are wrong. You get faster growth, more jobs and more investment with less government, fewer laws and lower taxes. That is why you need to say No to EU re set and to bigger devolved government to city regions.
June 30, 2026
Is the “West Lothian” issue relevant to his thinking?
Is he planning to reduce central grants to devolved areas, while allowing them new tax raising powers to compensate? Or are we all just going to have to pay for this grand experiment by subsidising madcap mayors across the country?
June 30, 2026
Burnham implies our GDP growth slump is due to a lack of devolved government in the regions. If that is the case why did we grow solidly pre-2000? We averaged about 3% growth and even had 5.5% highs under Margaret Thatcher and 4.9% highs under John Major without any devolved government.
If Burnham was sincere about economic growth he would address the real underlying problems which so far he has not said a thing about.
June 30, 2026
This used to be called a BGO. Not to understand it requires either a befuddled brain or a particular enmity towards Britain. Burnham is a Cambridge graduate in English literature. He is not befuddled. He, like Starmer and Hermer, all Fabians, hates Britain and wants sovereign nation states replaced by a socialist world order ruled by people like them.
There is only one person ahead of them: Shabana Mahmood. She can see these people are doormats for accelerating Muslim immigration etc ed. We should take her at her word. She has said that Islam drives everything she does. So she is transferring control of what is currently illegal immigration from the gangs to what she calls communities in Britain, ie, mosques, sharia councils, and other muslim organisations, under a new legalising framework. The Islamification of Britain is being put on steroids. The econmomy is very much a secondary consideration as Islam is not material in its beliefs.
i am sure this is not what Burnham et al on the Left want, but they don’t do God, so they are not capable of understanding the danger. They see Islam is just another whacko religion.
Reply Mahmood has been tougher in talk to reduce immigration, but now probably under pressure from the left and worrying about her job with Burnham is proposing worrying relaxations.
June 30, 2026
People such as Burnham have a particular dislike for England.
It is England that is the only Nation in the Union without its own Parliament or even given a voice as to whether they would like one or not.
It is the English who one minute do not exist, and therefore are without rights to expect their home, culture etc. to be respected, and the next are the evil doers of everything bad that ever happened since the Ark set sail.
I’m not sure that the Islamification of Britain and the consequences ever enter the vacuous heads (degrees don’t necessarily translate to intelligence) of the socialist type.
All those, be they Conservative with an exceptionally small ‘c’ or the socialist ilk, have clearly never travelled or even read a book regarding various cultures/religions, or they would never have invited them in to the extent they have, and then told them all to carry on as if at home.
The likes of Blair, Hermer, Burnham etc. all believe they will always be at the top directing things, but I don’t think they factor in that others do not hate their ethnic groups and religions, and will seek to ensure they are the top dogs.
They are seemingly clueless of human nature.
June 30, 2026
Indeed Michelle. If ever there was to be justice within devolution. England would be granted it’s own assembly/parliament (something Lord JR once championed) But Westminster denies the existence of England, beyond a pot of tax money to be handed out to others. It continues with the EU driven idea of chopping England into regions.
June 30, 2026
For 16 years we have had nothing but hot air and often total lies over illegal and legal migration.
Smash the gangs, how good they are for the economy, how they are all doctors and engineers, how magically they do not at all increase crime levels or pressure on schools, housing, roads, police, social services, prisons…
June 30, 2026
Talk is cheap and in politics we learn it is very often means the opposite of what appears to be spoken.
June 30, 2026
Exactly JR but I suppose per cap figure might be better though doubtless limited, we do not need more power and spending give, politicians, be they local or central government. Drakeford and Sturgeon were both appalling disasters. Encourage investment and growth with far lower taxes, cheap reliable energy, ditch net zero, a bonfire of red tape and leave the power and money with the people who made and know how to make it – individuals and businesses. Blair’s botched devolution was a disaster it was done to help Labour but actually helped independence parties like SNP and Plaid with disastrous results. With local languages forced down people’s throats and painted on police cars and road signs.
Drakeford, an ex-professor of Social Policy and Applied Social Sciences at Cardiff University, was as one would expect a total disaster as was (CND fan) Nicola Sturgeon another bitter, class warrior and deluded lefty lawyer like Blair and Starmer.
June 30, 2026
Sturgeon like ( spiteful?) Bridget Phillipson) both had parents who benefited from Thatcher’s right to buy it seems).
June 30, 2026
I could take up the whole of this thread listing all the various hypocritical stances of Socialists/Communists I know and/or have known.
I have come to the conclusion either they are exceedingly lacking in what I call natural and perceptive intelligence, and any self awareness, or they think we are and cannot see their glaringly obvious hypocrisy in many things.
June 30, 2026
Doubless they will soon find some genes that cause left wing “thinking” it seems to go with a lack of reason and logic and a total misunderstaning of human nature. Also” a do as I say not as I do attitude” like so many King Charles type greens. They very often thing they are being kind to people giving them the odd fish rather than teaching them to fish (or work in some other way). They generally like “being kind” with other people’s hard earned money they have stolen off them. This often combined with a chip on the shoulder, bitter envy of others and often a class war spite. As we see with the attacks on private schools, landlords and employers.
June 30, 2026
Doubtless “similar” rather (not limited)
June 30, 2026
Allister Heath
Starmer has a parting gift: a sinister plot to ‘re-educate’ the British public
Allister Heath
Britain is heading for an early general election, and I fear Burnham would win
I do not think this is likely myself (Turkeys and Christmas) but quite possible if he gets a large bounce from not being two Tier Starmer. Or rather from being a less Robotic but otherwise even worse Starmer.
June 30, 2026
I’ve read many times from credible sources that the EU’s plan was always to have England split into ‘the regions’.
It’s easier to control that way, particularly if it helps foster enmity.
Isn’t that what the North/South divide nonsense has always been about?
English men against English men will be very helpful for the socialist/communist EU project.
June 30, 2026
@Michelle +1
Transmanche Region
Towards the end of our stay in the EU the country was already effectively regionalised for EU purposes. The south of England shared a region with France. Guess where the purse strings were controlled from.
Nort Sea Region
Parts of Eastern England were part of a continental region with Holland, Denmark Norway and Sweden.
Then there was the Atlantic region which saw coastal regions of France and Portugal linked to the left half of the UK, and included Ireland.
I’ve still got the map from 2010 that defined all of this, with the intent of making us easily governable, mainly through a lack of democratic representation. With the regions fully active the EU could direct resources and commands directly to the regions, making Westminster an irrelevance.
July 2, 2026
Complete fiction. The EU has never proposed any such thing
June 30, 2026
Good morning.
No change as expected. continue with the job of ever closer Union with the EU. The idea of the so called devolved powers is to break up the UK and England in particular. A mad old project that has not changed since its inception in the 1950’s.
If our lot really ran the Royal Navy like they do the rest of the UK, we will still be going round in wooden ships of the line.
June 30, 2026
England has 87% of the population, 87% of the economic activity and 0% of the say. Scotland, Wales, NI and the UK all have a say. Not since apartheid South Africa have 87% been denied democratic equality.
The result: England is to be balkanised into regions by a Prime Minister with 0% of the vote and 100% of the power.
June 30, 2026
Rather more than 87% of the economic activity. Scotland and Wales even have a significant say over even English only matters! And take significant funds from England too.
June 30, 2026
Nick
One can “have a say” as you put it but that does not mean that one will be listened to after having that “say”.
June 30, 2026
I think extra layers of government mean more bureaucracy and more regulations which damage wealth and growth. Both devolution and the EU amount to an extra layer of government which accordingly damages wealth.
June 30, 2026
the Welsh NHS is far and away the worst NHS in the UK, which demonstrates that devolved control of public services is far from a way to success. better would be devolving decision making to individual patients by giving them real buying power, but the extremist Labour party thinks nanny state knows best.
June 30, 2026
Seems like our Government are determined to wreck our economy, our work, savings, and investment ethic, and the pride we once had in our Country as we once knew.
It is just a question now of how fast all this happens.
June 30, 2026
Can we really afford this fanciful devolution of powers where the resources will have to go through more bureaucratic levels, to be spread more widely, to probably obtain less effect, except that the final decisions might be made by local politicians, possibly.
Who is to say that ‘local politicians’ are more competent, less corrupt. The labour heartlands have had a bad reputation for decades – giving them more money would likely see no improvements except where certain individuals grow rich.
Before Burnham diverts money from the South he should find out why Northern areas lag behind the South in terms of effective spending. As always he is just following the usual socialist mantra of throwing money at a problem, with no real plan to make it effectively used.
June 30, 2026
Common sense and simple arithmetic tell us that doubling up on an already bloated bureaucracy will never improve growth and cut costs. Two elements vital to our recovery.
June 30, 2026
Burnham is giving all the signs of a man scurrying around looking for an idea. His inability to engage with questions about his ‘policies’ once he achieves PM is revealing. It informs us he has no understanding about the ideas he is proposing, if he did he would be happy to debate them and justify them.
Burnham is exactly like Starmer, a Mr Macawber figure hoping something will turn up..
Let us all hope it is the economy….
June 30, 2026
Labour seems poised to part-exchange their clapped-out, underperforming Starmer for a model that’s seven years younger. The salesman claims it has plenty of drive, but its EU number plate is cloned and the chrome is just plastic. A quick look below the bonnet shows it’s been welded from write offs and the dashboard is full of warning lights.
The trouble is, the country is already deep in debt and running on fumes. A burn-up with Burnham won’t get us back on the road, it’ll just need carting to the political scrap heap at the incinerator.
Same badge. Fresh red paint. Same expensive breakdown.
June 30, 2026
Burnham was part of the Collective Responsibility team that gave us the last pseudo version of devolution – how did that work out?
The UK Parliament will go along so far, but they fear devolution. They want to embedded their failed buddies closer to the action by they also want to hold the reins, pull the strings so to speak. Devolution to Parliament if it was the real intention would reduce the requirement for at least 50% of Parliaments members. Lets not lose sight of the ‘fact’ Parliament has had 40years of being trained by the EU to be their Local Council, taking orders and doing their bidding, that does not have any devolution content just submissive minions. Burnham has proven that is what he has in mind for the UK. As he has proved Burnham is looking to extend his Cabinet by having his puppets doing what he orders in the Regions. Another administrative layer were he holds the purse string and calls the shots – Marxist WEF training writ large
June 30, 2026
Mr Burnham’s new head of ‘No 10 North’ is apparently to be one Caroline Simpson, who worked with him in Manchester. Unfortunately, like Mr Burnham and as expected, Ms Simpson has no experience whatsoever of working in the commercial world. Even the Guardian is only cautiously optimistic about the content of Burnham’s speech yesterday. So it’s more of the same in terms of managed decline.
June 30, 2026
It seems we move from one empty vessel to another. Burnham’s speech yesterday was nonsense. A frightening lack of vision and no explanation of how this golden age will come about. I thought that by Christmas, Burnham would be as disliked as Starmer. I was wrong; I now think it will only take three months, not six.
June 30, 2026
Burnham’s England devolution policy is to break up England in the expectation that the devolved areas will be ruled by either the woke, as happened in Scotland and Wales, or by tribal leaders.
June 30, 2026
Who in their right mind would define a % of GDP as being the answer to your ability to defend yourself – it has nothing to do with anything. You either have a Defence and Security structure that is fully functional and capable or you don’t.
If % of GDP is the answer to all taxpayer spends, why doesn’t that also apply to the NHS, Education, Infrastructure, Quangos and so on? Because it is nonsense
June 30, 2026
How come every one knows what the contents of the Defence Investment Plan announcement is before the UK Parliament is informed? Why do we have 650 MPs when the incoming PM is introducing a new mandate, that wont get debated and he is suggestion that their(MPs) work has to be done in the regions?
Why does the UK Health Minister in Cabinet get the same money as other Ministers, when their position is not that of the UK Health Minister but just the Health Minister of England – and there is no English Parliament?
June 30, 2026
Burnham knows that devolution and the EU re-set will not bring growth, other than the growth of population size through immigration and the size of the public sector, for he understands that socialism depends upon making and keeping people poor. The test of whether he really believes in re-industrialisation, increasing employment and prosperity will be his policies on Net Zero and the cost and availability of energy. Has he worked out yet that implementing an energy system based upon electrification and electricity generated by chaotically intermittent renewables will require massive overbuilds of generation and distribution as well as the inconvenience and economic damage of not having energy available “at the flick of a switch”?
June 30, 2026
Look like our King is onboard –
”On 27 June 2026, Buckingham Palace published the Sovereign Grant report for 2025/26. Buried in the financial review of the Royal Household is a new definition of the King’s constitutional role. It now reads: “His Majesty is Supreme Governor of the Church of England and protects the space for Faith within the multi-faith nation.”
Chipping away bit by bit
June 30, 2026
sir John: ‘You need to say no’ – We have been saying, shouting and shrieking ‘No!!!’ since 23 June 2016, and your parliamentary ex-colleagues have simply ignored us. They are now revisiting the impudent Benn Act rebellion against the electorate majority in a renewed stitch-up. The only possibility now of saying ‘no’ is a lamentably violent one.
Where is Kemi Badenoch in all this? I hear no passionate speeches from her defending the country’s independence from the EU.
June 30, 2026
English voters are getting regional government through the creation of elected local mayors.
And we didn’t vote for them either.
Many years ago I saw an EU produced map which showed a pan-european administration map with UK regions already determined.
June 30, 2026
This is still part of Blair’s moving the structure and hierarchy of government to the left. Regional politics is more likely to vote left so brining in more Mayors will entrench left wing ideology.
It will work as the client state is expanding, it won’t be productive as helping oneself and competition are the keys to growth.
June 30, 2026
All of this could have been avoided if your party had simply done what its voters had told them to do.
July 1, 2026
Agree
June 30, 2026
Many articles on this site advocate learning lessons from the USA as, apparently, a far more economically successful country than the UK. Why is devolution not one of those lessons?
The USA is a far more devolved country than the UK. Look at how many decisions over tax and spend and laws are made down at the state level, the county level, the city level rather than being dictated from Washington DC.
One of the flaws of the devolution model in the UK is that it is not full devolution as Westminster and Whitehall haven’t and don’t want to give up control, but that is what is needed.
It would also be interesting to see how those GDP growth figures look when London and the South East are separated out from the other English regions. I suspect that would make interesting reading.
July 1, 2026
The size of States in America make the comparison meaningless.
Texas is 2.8 times bigger than the whole of the UK
Ten other States are bigger than the whole of the UK.
June 30, 2026
calm consideration concludes that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Norther Ireland is a busted flush.
The powerhouse of the “Union” is England.USA census responses “English” the largest root even larger
than the last UK census England section where the same question got 30%.Scotland bigger Scots Wales
bigger Welsh.Successive Governments have pandered to the outliers at the expense of the beating
heart and it is a cause for concern that NOT ONE of the traditional parties(I’m old school) is
offering hope.Burnham is co-operative labour(Beeb et al fail to mention) even further left than Blair’s
unspeakables
June 30, 2026
While extra devolution and extra power will naturally be welcomed by regional Mayors and the most senior Council Officers it will do nothing for the overwhelming majority of people. People are remote even from their own Town Halls and if they ever have reason to visit their Town Hall it is almost impossible for them to get beyond its Reception area nowadays. They are deliberately kept away from the interior and functioning areas of their own Town Hall which only goes to emphasise they have no say and no power nor even influence in their area. So what difference is it going to make if the place where decisions are made and they are excluded from is in London. Manchester or their regional city?
Besides there is a world beyond politics and one cannot stop London being the centre of that in our country. It is the centre of our finance and our wealth. It has many times the population of any other city or city region in Britain. It is the centre of our tourism, museums, culture and entertainment. Burnham certainly risks looking ridiculous and losing support if he sits in Manchester Canute-like, attempting to stop the London tide in our country.
July 1, 2026
Have just been reading how PM Carney is pivoting Canada away from the US and towards the EU, it looks like there’s a new northern hemisphere dynamic evolving, Perhaps Burnham has some special insight and maybe a revival of the old Milan / Manchester corridor is on the way – In any case from where we are some change is really needed
July 1, 2026
Odd decision when 70% of Canada’s trading is with USA.
July 2, 2026
England voted against regions and mayors, but we’re getting them regardless. Police commissioners are being culled (I actually support that – the biggest waste of resources ever!) to pay for some of that massive increase in representation.
It would have been interesting if the Facts4EU had broken them down into the English regions because we know some regions do much better than others.