Tag: #AndyBurnham

Does the Makerfield Test Really Work?

When Local Justice Meets National Responsibility

One of the most attractive political ideas to emerge in Britain this year is also one of the simplest.

Andy Burnham calls it the Makerfield Test.

His argument is straightforward: government should judge its success not merely by economic growth, favourable statistics or the approval of financial markets, but by whether life genuinely improves for ordinary people in communities such as Makerfield and thousands of places like it.

At first glance, it is difficult to disagree, isn’t it?

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The Accidental Outsiders

Accidental outsider on a bridge with the University of Oxford University on the right and a northern English town on the left.
Why We Need More Than One Perspective

I have come to realise that the most valuable education I ever received was learning to see the same country from two completely different points of view.

I was reminded of this recently while listening to Andy Burnham speak about the “Makerfield test”: his promise that national policy should be judged by whether it improves life in places such as Makerfield, rather than merely satisfying the economic and political orthodoxies of Westminster.

I was attracted to the idea immediately. That was not altogether surprising. Burnham and I have several things in common.

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