Britain’s Politicians Have Fallen for the Manchester Myth - but have they visited Glasgow?

Britain has become obsessed with the wrong city.

The city our politicians should be studying isn’t Manchester. It’s further north.

If you believed half the speeches coming out of Westminster, you’d think Manchester had single-handedly invented economic growth. Our government wants to make it the blueprint for everywhere else. What a stupid idea.

Andy Burnham has been a fantastic salesman for Manchester. Most of all, for himself. And somehow, gullible politicians and media people have fallen for the sparkle and swallowed every line.

Don’t get me wrong, Manchester is a fantastic city. Its renaissance is plain to see - as real as those happening in Birmingham, Liverpool and elsewhere.

There is a problem, though.

The problem is not Manchester, the place. It is the mistake politicians are making: taking the successes of one city and turning them into a religion.

So strong is the faith in Burnham’s Manchester that I almost daren’t mention Glasgow - “the second city of the British Empire”.

While Labour people are venerating Manchester, Glasgow has quietly been getting on with the day job. There has been no celebrity metro mayor or revolving door of media tours.

Most of all, Glasgow hasn’t given endless lectures about how to run Britain. It’s not that arrogant.

Instead, it has diligently got on with the honest toil of winning investment and driving regeneration. Stoically rebuilding, improving and winning.

The transformation there is remarkable, and people in the south should be paying far more attention to it. Things happening there rival anything further south and sometimes exceed them. Certainly, many people can build a better and more affordable life in the city.

Official ONS figures show that productivity and progress in the Greater Glasgow area match those of Greater Manchester. Wages are almost identical, too.

But homes in Glasgow are much cheaper - and that is what matters to young families and people building a life. Affordable homes and more money in people’s pockets are key to a city’s current and future success.

If two cities pay the same wages but one lets ordinary families buy or rent a home more cheaply, then that city is winning.

That’s a truth hardly anyone in Westminster gets.

Instead, we’re told to admire another office block and another glossy strategy document, while child poverty worsens and homelessness gets worse.

Manchester’s success didn’t begin with Andy Burnham and it certainly wasn’t created by metro mayors. It evolved over decades through the efforts of entrepreneurs, investors, universities, and workers. Burnham inherited a city that was already climbing.

Modern politicians have become remarkably good at confusing luck with skill.

Glasgow hasn’t even got a metro mayor.

I’m not arguing Glasgow is perfect. It isn’t. Nor am I arguing Manchester has failed. It clearly hasn’t. I’m arguing something much simpler. Politicians have fallen in love with a story and stopped asking whether it is actually true.

Britain doesn’t need ten Manchesters. It certainly doesn’t need ten Andy Burnhams.

Britain needs politicians who can see beyond the hype and study what genuinely improves people’s lives. Decent, affordable homes, to buy or rent, matter as much as anything.

The next time ministers head north looking for the future, they shouldn’t get off at Manchester Piccadilly.

Stay on the train.

Glasgow is waiting patiently for Britain to notice.

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Andy Preston is a political commentator.

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