Glasgow and Manchester are sister cities in so many ways.
Both were forged in the fire of the Industrial Revolution, both were hit hard by deindustrialisation, both are home to proud, no-nonsense working-class communities who want decent homes, reliable public transport and more opportunities for their kids.
What strikes me most about Andy Burnham is his emotional intelligence. He doesn’t just talk about working-class issues – he gets them. He listens. He connects.
For too long, the Labour Party has felt like it has been captured by a liberal elite that didn’t have the gumption to govern with the urgency needed to solve the problems faced in our communities. Burnham cuts through that. He speaks plainly and acts decisively.
His journey to Downing Street has been unconventional. From a Whitehall insider as Health Secretary to the pioneering municipal socialist who has transformed Greater Manchester.
That “road to Damascus” moment – turning from central government politician to a disciple of devolution – has produced something powerful: Manchesterism.
It’s not the old top-down machine politics and it’s certainly not the failed neo-liberal model of privatisation. It’s enterprise-friendly democratic socialism that puts place first, grows the economy with public investment and makes sure the proceeds reach every community.
The results are tangible. Bringing buses back under public control through the Bee Network was his proudest achievement – affordable fares, new routes, night buses, free travel for young people. After 40 years of Thatcher’s failed bus deregulation, people can actually rely on public transport again.
The Good Growth Fund – a billion pounds channelled directly into local priorities across Greater Manchester – shows what happens when you trust communities to decide what they need. He has shown us how local government can be an engine of social and economic justice.
In his conversation on the Ordinary Elite podcast hosted by Glasgow solicitor Mike Dailly and John McGovern, Burnham spoke powerfully about putting working-class people first and working across party lines to deliver real improvements in communities.
He has also set out a bold national vision inspired by Germany’s Basic Law: a constitutional commitment to strive for equivalent living conditions in every part of Britain – no more regions or nations left behind while London booms.
A Prime Minister serious about rebalancing power and resources so that the housing schemes in Glasgow get the same serious investment and opportunity as anywhere else.
This is what people mean when they talk about a real Labour Party. Our movement wasn’t invented in Westminster tearooms. It was built in the community halls of our industrial cities and coalfields.
John Wheatley, the Glasgow Shettleston MP who became Health Minister in the first Labour government of 1924, passed his famous Housing Act and launched the council house revolution that gave millions of working families a decent home for the first time.
Aneurin Bevan drew on his own experiences of hardship, illness and injury in the South Wales coalfield to start the National Health Service 78 years ago.
Closer to home, the Rev Geoff Shaw, the Gorbals minister who lived among the poor he served, became Convener of Strathclyde Regional Council in the 1970s and showed what bold, compassionate municipal leadership rooted in social justice could achieve for an entire region.
Their leadership inspired millions to vote Labour until their dying days, as they could see it was a party for them.
Andy Burnham carries that same torch. He understands that Labour wins and governs best when it is rooted in places like Glasgow and Manchester – when it delivers practical socialism that solves the problems faced in every daily life.
For voters in Scotland, this matters. A Burnham premiership offers the chance to reconnect Labour with the working-class communities that have felt disappointment and alienation from the political establishment for many years.
It offers devolution with purpose, not just rhetoric – more power closer to people who know how to solve problems in their areas best.
It offers a politics that values equivalent living standards across the whole UK, including Glasgow. And it is a chance to prove that Labour can be radical, competent and unashamedly on the side of working-class people.
Scotland needs a Labour government that feels like our Labour government – one that understands workers, working-class communities and the problems we need to work together to overcome in everyday life – not just abstract constitutional debates. Burnham brings exactly that spirit.
When he walks into Number 10, it won’t just be another change of leader and Prime Minister.
It will be the return of a Labour Party built for us, from the ground up, in the image of Wheatley, Bevan, Shaw and the municipal pioneers who built the Labour Party that improved millions of working-class lives during the last century.
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Glasgow – and Scotland – will be better for it.
Paul Sweeney is an MSP for Glasgow.