Would Andy Burnham's 'new political model' improve UK governance?

The most striking thing here is how little enthusiasm Burnham's own model generated even among its nominal supporters. Yes mustered only two opinions, and neither made a confident case for the plan itself, one voter's chief argument being that "the model will fail" and would usher in a Farage premiership as the real fix — hardly a ringing endorsement of devolution as designed.

The floor's most-respected arguments came from No, and they attacked devolution's record rather than Burnham's specifics. The top-rated opinion pointed to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as evidence against the whole premise: "If that were true, they would be the richest, healthiest, best-educated parts of the UK. They are the opposite." A second, equally respected, framed the danger in structural terms — "the bigger the devolution the bigger anarchy" — casting decentralisation as a slide toward fragmentation rather than a cure for it.

Where the two sides did meet was on money and power. The lone substantive Yes argument worried the model risks becoming stealth privatisation, "not devolution but privatising our regions," citing Teesside-style deals that leave "councils lose more income and control" — a critique of the model's implementation, not its principle. No's third voice picked up the same cost anxiety from the other direction, warning any new tier of governance would just "put extra cost onto taxpayer," each side distrustful of where the money ends up, neither trusting Westminster or the mayors to spend it well.

The result lands amid the same devolution scepticism that has dogged Holyrood, Cardiff Bay and Stormont for decades, and against a backdrop of rising combined authority debt that gave critics a ready-made economic hook. A Prime Minister elected on the promise of ending seven years of instability finds his signature constitutional fix meeting a chamber more persuaded by the failures of devolution past than the promises of devolution next.