Northerners don’t need Andy Burnham’s pity politics

Northerners don’t need Andy Burnham’s pity politics The PM-in-waiting’s northern nationalism has more than a whiff of wokeness about it. i Getty dataLayer.push({ event: 'author', author: "Lauren Smith" }) Lauren Smith 1st July 2026 i Getty Share Topics Identity Politics Politics Want unlimited, ad-free access? Become a spiked supporter. Outsiders to British politics could be forgiven for believing that the UK is about to get its first-ever northern prime minister. We’ve actually had several before, including Harold Wilson from Yorkshire and Anthony Eden from County Durham. But it’s a fair assumption, given just how central Andy Burnham, our PM-in-waiting, makes Being Northern to his identity.

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