What is 'Manchesterism'?
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 24 September 2025
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Andy Burnham, Manchester’s mayor and self-styled champion of the North, is openly flirting with a return to Westminster just days before the Labour Party conference. In a revealing interview, he outlined his 'Manchesterism' – a blend of business-friendly socialism and public control of essential services – though what that actually means remains unclear. Typically, he is full of inconsistencies, criticising Westminster and how it 'makes you look false', while openly seeking a route back. Does he see the irony?
Meanwhile, Keir Starmer faces challenges on multiple fronts: his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, is embroiled in a controversy over nearly £740,000 of undisclosed donations to Labour Together, threatening to overshadow conference proceedings.
Labour’s conference promises to be anything but dull, but who will steal the headlines: Burnham or McSweeney?
Lucy Dunn speaks to Isabel Hardman and Tim Shipman.
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
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Transcript
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| 0:39.3 | risk. Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots. I'm Lucy Dunn and today I'm joined by Isabel |
| 0:49.6 | Hardman and Tim Shipman. Every week seems to bring a new headache for Prime Minister Kier-Starmour at the moment. |
| 0:56.4 | There were Angela Vayner's tax affairs, Peter Mandelson and his relationship with Geoffrey Epstein, |
| 1:02.1 | and more recently Morgan McSweeney, his chief of staff, is under fire over £700,000 of undisclosed donations. |
| 1:09.7 | But luckily for Labour, there is a mayor in the |
| 1:12.8 | north who seems to have some solutions and he's given a very interesting interview, which has |
| 1:18.1 | been published today. Isabel, you've read the interview. I'm curious as to what you make of |
| 1:23.9 | Andy Burnham's own brand of politics, Manchesterism. What is that? |
| 1:28.7 | I wish I could give you a definition having read the interview, but I can't because he's still |
| 1:34.9 | not particularly clear. I mean, so I'll quote what he says. He says, it's neither blue net labour nor |
| 1:40.2 | soft left, Blairite nor brownite, but a form of consensual business-friendly socialism |
| 1:45.6 | that seeks to retake public control of all essential services from housing to transport. |
| 1:50.3 | So then it goes on and on and on. |
| 1:52.3 | So the only thing I can pick out from there that has any meaning for anyone in the real world |
| 1:57.0 | that Andy Vernon claims he inhabits is taking control of essential services. So basically |
| 2:04.1 | nationalisation or, you know, some kind of public ownership. Beyond that, it's just a string of labels |
... |
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