Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, has a plan he calls "Manchesterism." He describes it as "a vision for good growth and a rejection of the old trickle down model" — meaning he wants wealth to be spread more evenly, not concentrated in London and the South East. If he becomes Prime Minister, he says he would extend it across the whole United Kingdom, promising "good growth in every British postcode" (BBC News, 29 June 2026).

The idea started with something that happened to Burnham in 2007, when he was a junior Treasury minister. He was told that no project in the north of England passed the Treasury's "Green Book" test. The Green Book is a checklist the Treasury uses to decide whether a public project is worth funding — things like new railways, roads or hospitals. The problem, Burnham felt, was that the checklist was biased towards London and the South East, because projects there tend to show a quicker financial return. BBC Economics Editor Faisal Islam reported that this experience shaped Burnham's belief that the system works against the north of England (BBC News, 17 July 2026).

Burnham sets out the bigger picture in his book Head North. He wants to scrap something called the Barnett formula. This is the rule that gives Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland extra public money so their public services do not fall behind England's. Burnham says the north of England is caught in a "pincer" — squeezed between Treasury spending that favours the South East and the extra money the devolved nations receive. He points to Germany, where the law says the government must keep living standards similar across all regions, as an example the UK could follow (BBC News, 17 July 2026).

The Barnett formula is a sensitive subject. Some of Burnham's aides recently played down the idea of changing it after Scottish politicians raised concerns. That is a sign of how difficult this would be: Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all rely on the formula for their budgets, and their governments — the Scottish Parliament (Holyrood), the Welsh Parliament (the Senedd) and the Northern Ireland Assembly (Stormont) — would need to agree to any change. That agreement is far from guaranteed (BBC News, 17 July 2026).

Burnham also wants to change how Britain is governed. He supports proportional representation — a voting system where the number of seats a party gets in Parliament matches the share of votes it receives, unlike the current system where the biggest party often wins many more seats than its vote share. He wants to replace the House of Lords with a "Senate of the Nations and the Regions," giving every part of the UK a voice in the upper chamber. And he wants to move powers over public services out of Westminster and into the hands of local regions. Together, these changes would be the biggest overhaul of how the UK is run that any major politician has proposed in years (BBC News, 17 July 2026).

On climate change, Burnham contrasts a "Whitehall way" — bans, charges and taxes that he says hit the poorest hardest — with a "Northern Way." Under his approach, the government would subsidise the shift to clean energy, retrofit homes to make them cheaper to heat, and build local industries that can sell green technology abroad. The idea is that regions, not just central government, should drive the move to Net Zero (BBC News, 17 July 2026).

Greater Manchester has already been testing some of these ideas. The city-region's own documents set out what they call the "Greater Manchester Model of Unified Public Services," built on "a new relationship between public services and citizens, communities and businesses." A 2018 report said making mental health a priority was "the most urgent culture change needed" to make the model work. Burnham told an NHS conference that year it was a "unique opportunity" to join up health with other local services. He has since said Manchesterism is about "rolling back the 1980s" and taking local control of things like housing (Greater Manchester Combined Authority, January 2026).

The Bee Network — Greater Manchester's locally controlled bus and tram system — is Burnham's favourite example of the model working in practice (Reuters, 22 June 2026). The BBC has looked at what the approach might mean for Devon and Cornwall, suggesting Burnham wants the model to reach well beyond the North West (BBC News, 3 July 2026).

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has started pilot projects to reform the Green Book, which could shift Treasury decisions towards investing in local areas. That is a partial answer to the criticism Burnham has made since 2007. Whether those pilots survive the Treasury's traditional way of doing things is the key question (BBC News, 17 July 2026).

Analysis in The Conversation has noted that Burnham's plan depends on the Treasury agreeing to share more power — the same institution whose methods he wants to reform. Burnham tried to reassure financial markets as early as May 2026, committing to fiscal rules during a by-election in Makerfield (BBC News, 18 May 2026). The BBC's own verdict is careful: Manchesterism "could change the UK, but is not yet a full economic plan" (BBC News, 29 June 2026).

The broader context here is the gap between how much Burnham wants to do and how hard each piece would be to achieve. Scrapping the Barnett formula, reforming the Green Book, replacing the House of Lords, bringing in proportional representation and handing powers to the regions would each take years on their own. Together, they amount to rewriting the rules of how Britain is funded and governed — and whether that is possible depends on whether the Treasury can be persuaded to give up some of its own power.