Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham was clearly undeterred by his rejection by the current Labour Party leadership as a potential parliamentary candidate, speaking at the launch of the Centre for Social Justice’s Rewiring Education: The State of Technical Learning in England report this morning.
Burnham was asked via videolink from Oldham to address “the one question on everyone’s lips this morning – what is the secret behind the success of Manchester’s MBACC?”
Burnham was happy to play along: “That’s it. That’s all everybody is talking about all over the country. And of course, I’ve read every single word of the CSJ report, the brilliant report, because I didn’t have anything else to do at the weekend,” he deadpanned. “So I’m really familiar with it all. And it is wonderful.”
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Burnham went on to deliver a lengthy, ringing endorsement of the MBACC, or Manchester Baccalaureate, the new Manchester-focussed qualification the mayor launched under new devolution powers in 2023, explaining: “We’ve used devolution in Greater Manchester to try and reverse [de-industrialization and negative changes to the education system] and with some success – we are now in a position where we are the fastest growing city region in the UK. Average growth over the last decade of around 3% double the UK average. And last week, I put out a plan for the RE-industrialization of Greater Manchester based around our five core sectors of creative and media, digital and tech, life sciences, materials and manufacturing and the green economy, low carbon.”
Pushed further on the weekends’ events, Burnham replied: “I’ve said everything. I think I’m going to say about that today. I’m very much focusing on my on my job, and, yeah, I think I’m just going to leave it there, if that’s okay. I’d rather just talk about what we’re doing on technical education in Greater Manchester.”
The mayor-cum-aspiring-PM’s responses mirrored the cheeky-yet-diplomatic approach he had taken at an earlier event today, launching the new Class Ceiling report at Manchester’s Whitworth Art Gallery. There, having again declined to comment further on the “elephant in the room,” he greeted the audience saying: “You’ve all been probably trying to escape sight of me all weekend but here I am, Monday morning. Fantastic to be here. To be honest, I have read every single word of the report because I have not had anything else to do this weekend.”
