Out of Britain's eight Labour Prime Ministers, only three have direct experience of working in local government. The first Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald had been a London councillor elected in 1901, Clement Attlee was elected Mayor of Stepney in 1919, and now we have Andy Burnham who ran a local government administration as Mayor of Greater Manchester for nine years.
In his book Head North, Burnham talks openly about how his formative political years were all about Westminster and working his way up to becoming a Cabinet Minister. It wasn't until 2016 when his close friend and fellow MP Steve Rotheram persuaded him that they should set their sights on the newly created directly-elected Mayoral authorities, taking devolution into the English regions.
