ANDY Burnham is the mayor of Greater Manchester, but he’s hoping for something bigger.
The Labour man, who rumours say hopes to become the party’s leader someday, has been making headlines across Scotland due to his spat with the First Minister.
She announced a travel ban from Scotland to Manchester and Salford on Friday, and Burnham is not happy.
He’s been demanding compensation and engaging in a war of words with the SNP over it.
In one of this war’s battles, Burnham said: “If the First Minister of a country stands up at a press conference and announces that the UK's second city is going under a travel ban, it has an impact.”
Where is Burnham talking about? "The UK's second city"? Surely not Salford.
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Birmingham? The UK’s second largest city in terms of population? Under this measurement, Manchester doesn’t even make the top three.
Edinburgh? A global cultural powerhouse that also happens to be the capital of an entire country and the most visited outside London?
Glasgow? “The Second City of the British Empire”? Not something to be overly proud of perhaps but a solidly historical moniker nonetheless. The same could be said of Liverpool.
Although “the UK’s second city” is a loose and much debated term, we’re not sure Manchester springs to mind for anybody that lives outside Manchester.
Was Burnham just inflating his own position a little?
But then, apparently some do think the city is the UK’s second.
Polling by BMG for the Birmingham Mail in 2017 found that “38% of adults view Manchester as the second city compared with 36% who believe Birmingham still serves the title”.
A little dig into those figures will reveal a not hugely surprising fact: those adults are in England.
The Scottish overwhelmingly put Edinburgh (55%), but Glasgow wasn’t even an option.
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Instead, respondents were asked to choose between the Scottish capital, Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff, Belfast, and Other.
Just 1% of those “UK adults” said Belfast. But the pollsters don’t appear to have bothered to ask anyone in Northern Ireland.
In Wales, Birmingham was first (29%), Manchester second (26%), and Cardiff third (23%).
So, calling Manchester the UK’s second is the English view on things.
Figures we’d hear that from a Labour man.
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