Keeping up with the Burnhams
Exclusive: Edinburgh makes bid for extra powers to match Manchester Mayor
It was a moment which inspired a thousand Covid lockdown memes and put Andy Burnham at the centre of national debate.
The Greater Manchester Mayor’s invective on the doorstep of Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall - “This is no way to run the country in a national crisis… This is not right” - dramatically stole the headlines from Boris Johnson’s government.
It was also arguably the moment that the office of English regional mayors came of age, in a barrage of flashing lightbulbs from tipped-off media.
Burnham may have flexed his muscles in the most public and dramatic of fashions. Ever-douce Edinburgh goes about things in a very different way.
The city has a habit of going about some of its best work quietly. So quietly in fact that its bold bid to take on extensive new spending and decision-making powers modelled on Greater Manchester has gone unreported, at least until today.
Make no mistake though, the work of the city in this regard may be quiet, but it is far-reaching in its ambitions, with the aim of taking on powers that could prove transformative for the city-region.
Continue reading this post for free, courtesy of Edinburgh Inquirer.
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