Is Andy Burnham's 'good growth' plan a genuine improvement on Boris Johnson's levelling up?

The chamber's verdict was less a defence of Boris Johnson's record than a shrug at the idea that Andy Burnham's "good growth" amounts to anything more than a repackaging of it, with no winning by two to one. That is not the response a challenger brand hopes for when positioning itself against a discredited predecessor.

The scepticism ran deepest among the middle-aged and the near-retired: the 55-64s dug in hardest against the plan, and the 35-44s were nearly as unconvinced, while only the youngest handful of voters leaned yes. Men and women, though, moved in lockstep, both splitting a third in favour, suggesting this was a generational rather than gendered read on regional policy. Older sceptics, old enough to remember successive northern-growth pledges from Heseltine's task forces onward, seem the hardest to persuade that a new devolution settlement changes the underlying arithmetic.

The result echoes a familiar fault line in England's regional politics: the gap between mayoral ambition and Treasury reality, where business-rate retention and "No 10 in the North" gestures compete with fiscal constraints that have outlasted several prime ministers. Voters here seem to suspect the geography of power is changing faster than its substance.

If Burnham hoped to be judged as the anti-Johnson, this chamber judged him mostly as more of the same.