As seen in the New Statesman
(Cont. from pages 1-13)… as V.S. Naipaul once remarked in The Road to Wigan Pier. And so I’ve come North. To see if Leviathan still has legs in a country shaken by global tremors. And if the rise of Reform owes anything to the Tolpuddle Martyrs. But above all, I’ve come to Manchester in search of Andy Burnham’s roots as a politician, and as a person.
‘Me stomach’s rumbling,’ says Andy, insightfully. ‘I want chips ’n’ greveh. But I spent me last quid down bookies’
Burnham’s almost Silicon Valley-like brio for the ‘White Heat’ of technology sits alongside a thoughtful Roman Catholicism, grounded in a rich social democratic tradition. Not Methodism, nor Marxism, but MotherMary. In a certain respect the new settlement he is seeking to build in these islands resembles that of the Roman Catholic Church: a benign central power empowers bishops in the regions and nations to minister to their congregations according to local needs, with a robust critique of capitalism and doctrinaire socialism both. When I put this idea to Burnham, he responds with a pithy observation: ‘The Stone Roses, they were fookin’ class, lad.’ I could see straight away that this was a more thoughtful kind of politician. I discard my previous theory and we sit in silence for several minutes as I absorb this latest statement of principle.
