Prime Minister Andy Burnham has been criticised live on air over his plan to establish a new No. 10 in the North. Appearing on Friday's GB News, political commentator Claire Pearsall dismissed the move with three words: 'It's so performative!'
'I can't even start to think why this is going to work. It isn't; let's put that out there,' she said. The PM intends to send ministers including Louise Haigh, Lucy Powell, and Angela Rayner to an office block in Manchester.
Naughty step comparison
Claire remarked, 'You do wonder if this is the equivalent of the naughty step.' She noted an 'overrepresentation of the North-west in the cabinet at the moment,' adding that Burnham 'hasn't done a particularly good job of picking people from other parts of the country to make these decisions.'
'You can't then tell me that you're going to make sensible decisions for places like the South-west and the South-east when you've got people so far [away],' she continued. 'You're looking mainly at anybody who has worked with Andy Burnham, either previously or heavily involved with his mayoralty. Those people have been taken in, so let's see how that goes but I'm not suggesting that for one second the South-east is going to get any representation from No. 10 North. They're going to look at the southeast and say, 'Do you know what? We're not interested.''
Viewer reactions
Viewers on X agreed with the criticism. One quipped, 'He just wants to work from home on Fridays. Can't be bothered to be in the place that has been the seat of power for our PM since 1732.'
