Prime Minister Andy Burnham has credited Liverpool with shaping his political career and putting the city’s values at the heart of government. Jennie Lewis reports
Speaking exclusively to The Guide Liverpool at the Labour Party Conference, the Prime Minister thanked the city for shaping him as a person – and as a politician.
Aintree-born Andy Burnham said the city’s fight for Hillsborough justice changed his life – and ultimately helped propel him to Downing Street.
“I don’t think I’d be standing here if this city hadn’t rightly corrected me,” he said. “Liverpool changed my path and my life in politics.”
Mr Burnham first backed the campaign for truth after attending the 20th anniversary Hillsborough memorial service at Anfield in 2009.
He went on to help establish the independent panel whose landmark 2012 report exposed institutional failings and led to the original inquest verdicts being overturned.
He said that campaign had delivered lasting national change through the Hillsborough Law.
“The values of this city are now planted at the heart of the British state,” he said.
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Mr Burnham also highlighted Liverpool’s transformation from the derelict docklands he remembered in the 1980s to the revitalised city now hosting a major national political conference at its waterfront Exhibition Centre.
Returning as Labour leader and Prime Minister had been “overwhelming”, he admitted, recalling his family’s connections to the docks and his grandfather’s work as a Tate & Lyle lorry driver.
“It’s been quite a thing coming here to the Labour Conference as Labour leader, Prime Minister, having been born in the city.
“I remember my mum and dad sitting me down and showing me Boys from the Blackstuff in the early 80s and that episode, George’s Last Ride, when he was being wheeled in his wheelchair around the decaying docks, the Albert Dock, all of it in total dereliction.
“Then you come back and you see this revitalised Liverpool – and me in this position – and it’s quite something.”