The Relationship Between Andy Burnham & Steve Rotheram is Good for Liverpool

It is fair to say that the people of Liverpool have what might be called a ‘healthy scepticism’ when it comes to politicians and politics in general.

There is plenty of evidence from history to back up the thoughts of many as far as politicians are concerned, from Margaret Thatcher’s ‘managed decline’ of the city through to the way that even some Labour leaders have let people down.

In the modern age, though, there is some hope that the close relationship between Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram might prove to be a good thing for Liverpool and the North-West in general.

Who Are We Talking About?

If you don’t know much about politics, then it isn’t out of the realms of the possible that both Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram have somehow managed to escape your attention. Perhaps you know the names or might recognise their faces if you saw a photo of them in a newspaper but are otherwise none the wiser about them.

The two Scousers have a big influence over the city, however, and the North-West more broadly on account of the positions that they hold. Andy Burnham was born on the seventh of January 1970 in Fazakerley and is the Mayor of Greater Manchester.

@lpoolcityregion 💥 We’re back for round three of the DJ Battle on Friday 2 Feb at the amazing @Camp and Furnace – Liverpool! Join us as Mayor Steve Rotheram takes on Mayor Andy Burnham 🎧 and play your part in helping us raise funds for homeless charities across the Liverpool City Region and Greater Manchester! For tickets visit quaytickets.com and search DJ Battle #homelessnessawareness #charity #fundraising #liverpool #manchester #andyburnham #steverotheram ♬ original sound – LCR Combined Authority

Steve Rotheram, meanwhile, was born in Kirkby on the fourth of November 1961 and serves as the Mayor of the Liverpool City Region. The two men are good friends, thanks largely to the fact that they are members of the Labour Party and are from the same city.

There is also the fact that they are able to discuss football on a regular basis, with Burnham being an Evertonian and Rotheram being a Liverpool supporter. Burnham also represents the people of Manchester, often fighting the corner of Manchester United or Manchester City if the situation calls for him to do so.

They’ve Written a Book Together

If you want to get a sense of who they are as people and what they’re trying to achieve, then you could look to the fact that they have written a book together. Head North is seen as part-memoir, part-manifesto that criticises a ‘system in which already powerful interests find it far too easy to get their way’.

It comes with a tagline that says it is a ‘rally cry for a more equal Britain’. They have worked together in the book to create a 10-point plan that could rewire how the British state operates in order to ensure that the people of the North are given the same opportunities as those who live in the South.

Enjoyable evening at a Waterstone’s event with Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram discussing their book “Head North A rallying cry for a more equal Britain”. pic.twitter.com/ucJAqIAKpq

— Christopher Williams (@chrisdavidwill1) March 20, 2025

Having been born just three miles apart, it was actually Westminster that brought them together when Burnham was promoted to Culture Secretary and Burnham was Liverpool’s Lord Mayor, meaning that their paths crossed often. This was in spite of the fact that Burnham would avoid Rotheram as he thought he was one of the Liverpool Council-controlling members of the Liberal Democrats.

It was only when Rotheram said, “You do know I’m Labour, don’t you?” that the pair began a friendship that has now lasted nearly two decades and could lead to major improvements for the North-West.

It is a Broken System

Unfortunately for both Rotheram and Burnham, they are fighting against a broken system that is in place in order to ensure that the South is always going to have more money going to it than the North. Such was the extent to which the two men believed that they were trying to swim upstream that in 2016 they shook hands with one another and then promptly resigned their seats in the House of Commons.

They then went on to fight for the Mayoralties of Liverpool and Manchester, winning and gaining reputations as politicians who are more bothered about addressing the concerns of working people than of protecting their own careers.

Burnham perhaps demonstrated this best during the pandemic when Boris Johnson took a derisory stand towards Greater Manchester and he made the decision to stand up to him publicly, receiving much support in the process. The two of them have also worked to end the scandalous nature of profiteering that has been taking place with the bus services in the two regions, taking them back under local government control instead of allowing private companies to run them.

Having lived through events such as the Miners’ Strike and the Hillsborough Disaster, the two men know how quickly working-class people can be screwed by those in power and are keen to fight against it.