How realistic is Andy Burnham’s plan to make No. 10 North responsible for the government’s ‘growth mission’? The Prime Minister’s argument is that taking that function away from the Treasury and giving it to No. 10 ‘means you’ve got maximum power to unlock the blockages where they exist in the wider Whitehall system’ – and that basing that mission in Manchester rather than Downing Street is part of a ‘huge transfer of power’ out of Whitehall. Burnham also wants to make more use of the Treasury’s Darlington campus, which is still being built and which Rachel Reeves worked from just twice in 2025 when she was chancellor, so it’s quite a low bar to do ‘more’ with that.

It will be Burnham himself who faces far........

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