Aug 6, 2026 · 7 min · 4 segments
Andy Burnham’s allies boasted that highly-regarded economists had been lured as advisers. City AM Editor in Chief Christian May and Economics and Politics Reporter Mauricio Alencar discuss the…
Mauricio AlencarGuestWell, I'm going to ask one of the authors of that piece, Maurizio, as our political and economics reporter.
And this feature that you did with Ali Lyon, our chief reporter, is a very good example of quite how well that works.
So, you spoke to an awful lot of people, you looked at all the different people movements, you tried to connect the dots.
Start by telling us what happened to the big three brains that we were all told are advising Andy Burnham while Keir Starmer was still in number 10, but we knew Burnham was gonna take over and we were told, look at these big three brains he's got with him.
were they? The day before the Make Pitfield by-election coordinated series of reports said Andy Haldane, the former Bank of England deputy governor, Richard Hughes, the former OBR chair, who was ousted over leaking the budget.
And finally, we also had Jim O'Neill, who was a treasury minister under the Conservatives, who led that sort of northern powerhouse, allowed Burnham to be the mayor as he was.
Effectively, these advisors were never appointed and some of them not handed any official role.
So it is a slightly bizarre thing to do to brief out that you are appointing three economists and not appoint any at all.
Keir Starmer used to have Manoush Shafiq, also a former deputy governor of the Bank of England.
Well, I'm going to ask one of the authors of that piece, Maurizio, as our political and economics reporter.
And this feature that you did with Ali Lyon, our chief reporter, is a very good example of quite how well that works.
So, you spoke to an awful lot of people, you looked at all the different people movements, you tried to connect the dots.
Start by telling us what happened to the big three brains that we were all told are advising Andy Burnham while Keir Starmer was still in number 10, but we knew Burnham was gonna take over and we were told, look at these big three brains he's got with him.
were they? The day before the Make Pitfield by-election coordinated series of reports said Andy Haldane, the former Bank of England deputy governor, Richard Hughes, the former OBR chair, who was ousted over leaking the budget.
And finally, we also had Jim O'Neill, who was a treasury minister under the Conservatives, who led that sort of northern powerhouse, allowed Burnham to be the mayor as he was.
Effectively, these advisors were never appointed and some of them not handed any official role.
So it is a slightly bizarre thing to do to brief out that you are appointing three economists and not appoint any at all.
Keir Starmer used to have Manoush Shafiq, also a former deputy governor of the Bank of England.
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