Ask people what “The North” actually means and the answer might depend on where you are posing the question.
Manchester, for example, isn’t anywhere near the North if you live in Lerwick, and the geographic centre point of the UK is technically somewhere around Morecambe Bay.
The correct answer for the sake of our latest report, Mind the Northern Gap, is anything North of and including Sheffield really, so that should settle the debate.
For some, perhaps many, “The North” simply means “not London” or in a political context, “not Westminster”.
New Prime Minister Andy Burnham built his political resurgence on his northern background as he ascended to the throne as King of the North. He has followed that through by creating a No 10 North in Manchester and packing his court – we mean Cabinet – with northern MPs.
But how northern actually is his Cabinet? Well, pretty darn bloodeh northern is the answer we found in our research, but surprisingly not the most northern.
Looking back over the last 30 years of Governments, a clear trend emerges of PMs picking local MPs for top jobs – with some exceptions. There’s almost certainly a rational explanation for this; for example, leaders tend to have safe seats which means their constituency will be in an area usually surrounded by others from the same party.
However, other factors can be at play. For example, the highest proportion of Scots in a Cabinet was in Tony Blair’s first Cabinet in 1997. What played a part here was the large number of Scottish Labour MPs who bucked the UK trend during the party’s big losses in the Thatcher era, so Blair being a northern MP probably didn’t make much difference. Meanwhile, devolution has meant that was the high-water mark of Scottish representation and may also explain the low representation of London MPs in Cabinets.
Does the make-up of Cabinet seats really matter?
Well, that all depends on the outcome. If “The North” is a concept rather than a place, then what Burnham is doing is signalling an approach that is fundamentally different to Keir Starmer’s.
Starmer was often seen as “London elite”, an Islington-based lawyer who, despite going to university in Leeds, didn’t understand the country beyond the capital. Burnham is presenting as the opposite and burnishing his outsider credentials with a Cabinet who know the difference between a barm cake and a morning roll – or a teacake if you’re from a very niche area of West Yorkshire.
It worked in his own by-election, and if using a tangible reference point backed up by Cabinet supporters from his own heartland helps him regain the Red Wall territory Reform UK has colonised for the last few years, then it will definitely be worth it.
If not, he’ll be left with nowt.
Mind the Northern Gap
We’ve spent the last couple of weeks analysing all the new details of Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s brand new Cabinet to find out exactly how northern it really is (and what that actually means).
To read our brand new report, Mind the Northern Gap – An insight into the geographical composition of UK Cabinets from Blair to Burnham, get in touch and we’d be delighted to share it with you.
For a sneak preview, check out our recent Linkedin post: here
Once you’ve done that, we encourage you to re-read this Briefly in a northern accent for your own amusement, as it is fun to say words like “nowt” and “bloodeh” like a northerner.
