Henry Zeffman: Andy Burnham offers a blueprint for his premiership

Henry Zeffman: Andy Burnham offers a blueprint for his premiershipImage source, ReutersByHenry ZeffmanChief political correspondentPublished7 minutes agoAndy Burnham tried and failed to become prime minister twice before. He is now three weeks away from moving into Downing Street.It was Burnham's decade away from Westminster as the mayor of Greater Manchester which ultimately delivered the prize which had previously eluded him.So it is little surprise that Burnham chose to give his first speech as the presumptive prime minister in Manchester.And it is little surprise that at the heart of Burnham's vision for the nation is using his approach in Greater Manchester - "Manchesterism" - as a blueprint for the rest of the country.Today offered more of a sense of what this would mean: principally a significant devolution of powers away from Westminster and to the kinds of office that less than two weeks ago Burnham still held.Take "Number 10 North", the new prime ministerial office based in Manchester whose creation was one of the most significant announcements of the speech. There are already lots of government offices outside of London, and under Rishi Sunak the Treasury set up a campus in Darlington.But what Burnham was describing here felt more significant than the relocation of staff. This No 10 North would have specific responsibility for the "biggest council housebuilding programme since the postwar period", he said, raising some questions about the role of the Ministry of Housing and perhaps suggesting that a wider shakeup of the machinery of government is in the offing.How exactly this will work would doubtless have been a subject for the media questions which Burnham declined to take. For all the vision, and do not underestimate how happy Labour MPs will be to hear a vision, there is plenty of detail to be filled in.As well as new powers for national civil servants based in Manchester, Burnham - as anticipated - vowed to gi...