Number 10 North is no ‘gimmick’, says Andy Burnham

As Manchester prepared to welcome Andy Burnham to his new northern Number 10, one nearby office employee had already found an unexpected upside.

“I’ve been trying for three months to get them to jet-wash that square,” he said approvingly as a band of men in hi-viz jackets blasted the ground outside on Thursday. 

Aside from freshly washed pavements, rooftop snipers and a newly installed security camera opposite his new office, the welcome when Burnham finally arrived on Friday was eclectic to say the least. 

Journalists and a smattering of curious members of the public began to gather from mid-morning outside Albert Square’s Heron House, the unprepossessing 1980s office block in which Number 10 will initially be housed. 

As the day wore on the crowd got bigger. So too did the wedding parties: Heron House also houses the city’s registry office.

Eight separate weddings took place in the building while Burnham did interviews and held his first National Economic Council meeting, bringing together regional mayors and ministers. 

The prime minister himself described it as “the best day of my life”, before admitting in a late interview that his wife might not be impressed by that assertion.

Critics, often “London based”, were wrong to dismiss Number 10 North, he added. 

“They like to say, ‘Oh, this will just be the new levelling up, or another sort of shortlived gimmick’, and they’ll also say ‘What’s it going to cost?’,” he said.

Only one reporter from the Press Association was allowed in to get Burnham’s thoughts on his first day in his new office before circulating his words to the rest of the media. On social media, however, the prime minister was more active, posting about ranking pub snacks with the chancellor John Healey while on a visit to Essex.

As the day went on, it also transpired that the Manchester Number 10 has its own version of London’s Downing Street black door.

Not at the front of the building, whose revolving doors are guarded by armed police officers, but inside.

It does not lead anywhere but has been installed near the lift, partly so that visitors can pose near it as they would do on Downing Street. The prime minister duly did so.  

But Burnham remains insistent that the new Manchester office sends a more important signal to the rest of the country. 

“Actually, isn’t it better that we have a North Pole that balances the South Pole of our country, where power will always be concentrated?” he asked.

“Not all places have felt that they are part of the national story, and that is what this government is going to work every single day to change.”

For now, Manchester is getting used to its powerful guest, a month after waving him goodbye as mayor. Burnham will be here at least every Friday from now on, he has promised.

Britain’s security apparatus will be adjusting. Some in the city are already wondering how long the operation will remain in a building so different from Downing Street, facing straight on to Manchester’s main square.

Heron House also houses part of GCHQ, the government’s listening post, an arm of government unused to gathered crowds and TV cameras. At one point departing employees were applauded by expectant onlookers anticipating Burnham’s appearance.

Downstairs at Heron House, the Slug and Lettuce had staffed up ahead of Number 10’s opening. At lunchtime the bar was doing a roaring trade, even if employees seemed somewhat bemused. 

Number 10 staff would not be getting a discount, confirmed one. But they “would be welcome to book their Christmas party” there. 

By lunchtime the scene was far from the limited mix of politicos and lobby journalists who traipse up and down Downing Street in London after first passing a series of checks on the front gate. 

Graduating students in mortarboards mingled with newly-weds posing for photos, armed police, a homeless man selling books of jokes and office workers on their lunch breaks hoping to spot the prime minister.

But ultimately people spent their day staring at not very much. 

Of the cabinet, only Louise Haigh, Burnham’s right-hand woman, entered through the building’s main revolving doors after stalking through Albert Square holding her red box shortly after 10am. 

Burnham entered via a side street. And then nothing for most of the day, other than the arrival of some regional mayors in the early afternoon. 

By the end of the day, hundreds of people had come to stand behind the metal barriers fronting the office’s prosaic red-brick frontage. Finally at nearly 7pm, he appeared for a few seconds and waved.

Nevertheless one woman working nearby said she thought the crowds would be back.

“People are nosy,” she said, pointing out that any time the TV cameras appeared, a crowd gathered. “This is very unusual, isn’t it, to have the prime minister right there? You wouldn’t get that in London.”