King of the north, you say? That’s a matter of definition. Andy Burnham may have laid claim to the title, but John Swinney might point out that the UK extends significantly beyond Manchester. Given the independence movement’s republican tendencies, “king” is not a word the First Minister would associate himself with, but there is little doubt who rules over Northern Britain. The question, as we await the uncontested elevation of Burnham to Downing Street, is whether these two monarchs can work together more profitably than their predecessors.
At this early stage, there is some cause for optimism. Burnham’s devolutionary instincts, his plans to remove key levers of government from London and Whitehall in order to create a “No 10 North”, are both radical and in tune with the ideas of identity and control that underwrote the creation of Holyrood, the Senedd and the Northern Ireland assembly. So, too, is the intention to pass greater powers to directly elected mayors and local authorities.
In an article for the Scotsman this week, the presumptive prime minister used language that could just as easily have come from an SNP leader. “After 10 years of political turbulence since Brexit, and 20 years of falling living standards since the financial crash, Westminster has not been working for people,” wrote Burnham. “It has not been working for a very long time. In fact, it is broken. We will make politics work for you, and the place where you live. The days of Whitehall fighting the devolution of power into the regions and nations are over. For good.”
There is plenty of policy crossover, too. Burnham makes much of the Bee bus network in Manchester – Edinburgh’s Lothian buses operate on a similar model. His proposal to take essential utilities under public control essentially mirrors much of what is already in place in Scotland where, for example, the water industry is controlled by Scottish Water, a state quango.
The Scottish government is unlikely to follow England down the mayoral route – “just another needless layer”, a senior figure told me – but it is looking at greater devolution of power to the regions as well as more ultra-local devolution that would allow communities to directly address what they decide are their key priorities.
There are similar political conversations taking place north and south of the border: about whether too many young people are going to university when they might be better served by college education and apprenticeships; about reindustrialisation, especially around the defence industry, which has a heavy footprint in Scotland, and renewable energy; about the need to build more houses and rejuvenate ailing high streets; about how best to tackle the rising welfare bill; abou thow to create a renewed social contract that can rebuild public trust and see off the populist parties that have gathered support in recent years.
There is no good reason that both governments cannot work together on some of these issues, inspiring and learning from one another. This would, of course, require a grown-up form of politics on both sides, which has up till now been in short supply. But I do wonder what John Swinney has to lose from pursuing a more open, friendlier and more collaborative approach to Westminster, especially when the new prime minister leans the way Burnham does. The politics of grievance has grown old and stale. Independence is not just around the corner. People are looking to their leaders to show they can make a difference, to put country before party. False divisions and confected rows serve no-one in a climate where many of the policy challenges facing Scotland and England are similar if not identical.
The refashioning of the state will be at the centre of the coming years for both Holyrood and Westminster. Swinney acknowledged as much when he appointed Ivan McKee to the new post of Cabinet Secretary for Public Service Reform. McKee is that rare thing in Nat circles, a former businessman who casts a gimlet eye over public sector waste and duplication. He has been charged with making the vast Scottish state more effective and efficient. I’m told he and Jenny Gilruth, the Finance Secretary and Deputy First Minister, are “joined at the hip” when it comes to identifying savings. There has already been work done on merging the back office functions of quangos, with more to come. The Scottish Government’s property portfolio is shrinking, and civil service numbers are starting to come down.
McKee and Gilruth want to go further – they will have to, given the administration faces a £5bn funding gap, and work is underway to identify additional savings over the summer. There are something like 500 separate agencies handing out grants of public money, which seems rather excessive and is certainly confusing for applicants. There is a desire to break down silos in different departments that prevent progress being made. There is an understanding that tough choices are better made in the early months and years of a government, when political capital is at its strongest. The First Minister is said to be fully behind his ministers, and there is hope the opposition parties will play a constructive role in driving through change.
There is plenty of scepticism over whether the SNP will have the guts to reform the state in any meaningful way – its track record hardly provides confidence. But I detect a determination at senior levels that wasn’t there before and an understanding that change is now unavoidable. There is scepticism, too, over whether Burnham’s radicalism will survive the realities of national rather than regional politics and power. But, otherwise, what’s the point of him?
However, for the first time in a while there is a fresh energy and a fresh set of ideas coming to British politics – perhaps even a degree of much-needed hope. The SNP must decide, quickly, whether it wants to take part in this new era.
[Further reading: The late style of Anas Sarwar]