It’s been an incredibly important week for Andy Burnham.
He gained new powers in the budget, signed a trade deal with North Carolina, and launched the Beyond The Music festival with New Order at SXSW in Austin. This week, therefore, has been his ‘great American road trip’.
But those are not his words. They’re the words of Joe Scarborough, the anchor of MSNBC’s flagship breakfast TV show Morning Joe, which hosted one of the most important appearances in the Mayor’s near-six-year-tenure.
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His slot, which occupied the five minutes of airtime before 7am in New York, started with platitudes. “I was blown away by Manchester when I visited.
“I grew up listening to the sound of the city, and I expected post-industrial rot, but it’s extraordinarily vibrant,” said Scarborough, a former Republican politician who has turned his back on the party, and now is an affable, but almost-too-polished master-of-ceremonies.
Scarborough was just one quarter of the panel throwing Andy questions. Another one was Mika Brzezinski, his co-host and wife, there to keep the programme to time.
Then there was Sam Stein, an evidently talented political journalist, but one who felt out-of-place with the happy-Starbucks-slurping-couple. Then there was Katty Kay, a BBC hack.
And in the middle of all this confusion was the Labour lad from Leigh. He sat there, his obvious nervousness showing he knew how big a deal this was.
There was an off-kilter jibe to Burnham about Everton, and how poorly they’re faring compared to Scarborough’s Liverpool. Then it was Andy’s turn to make a joke which didn’t quite land — about ‘bringing over a little known English band called New Order’ — to an audience that doesn't quite get irony in the way it’s baked into the Northern way of life.
But he did fare better when chewing the fat. “We are a very vibrant city,” he strode forward with, discussing the new North Carolina deal.
“The Manchester of old with grime is not today’s Manchester. Cities like Charlotte have a lot in common with us, as does Austin. We are the football and music capital of the UK.
“Our new festival is going to be like SXSW with a Manchester twist on it. I even found out that the second gentlemen of the US is a New Order fan and Manchester United fan — we’ll take that,” he added, a pun better received.
Then things started going really well. “The UK has not managed to get a trade deal with the US post-Brexit. Is this the future, city to city?,” Katty Kay asked, the other Brit in the room.
“That’s where the action is,” Burnham replied. “City to city works, it takes the politics out of it — at a national level there’s always tension, but at the city-level it’s about getting things done.”
Andy was enjoying this now, it seemed. He was a little more at ease, and some colour had returned to his face — which stuck out as a perfectly normal magnolia compared to the sunset orange of his opposite numbers.
And, as quickly as it began, it was over. There was just time for Andy to say there was ‘no better place to be than NYC’ for St Patrick’s Day as a man ‘with Irish heritage’, a platitude met with smiles and nods from the quartet.
The link to Andy disappeared, and so began a series of adverts for a bewildering array of medicines, vitamins, and potions the heavily deregulated pharmaceutical industry thrusts on Americans.
Later in the day, he met with NYC Mayor, Eric Adams, and various business leaders from the city, the MEN understands. It’s been a big week for the Mayor — with once-in-a-generation powers coming his way — and a once-in-a-lifetime five minutes of fame.
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