PM-in-waiting Andy Burnham joined Labour mayoral candidate Bev Craig for the launch of her campaign – saying they had built success in the Greater Manchester region togetherAndy Burnham with Labour’s candidate for Mayor of Greater Manchester, Bev Craig(Image: Peter Byrne/PA Wire)Andy Burnham joked he’d had a “bit of a busy week” as he returned home to endorse Labour’s candidate for Manchester mayor.The PM-in-waiting joined Bev Craig for the launch of her campaign – saying they had built success in the Greater Manchester region together. Speaking in the baking afternoon sunshine at Radcliffe football club Burnham said: “I’m pleased to be back home after a bit of a busy week. Back in what everyone in Westminster calls my Manchester clothes.”Manchester city council leader Bev was also joined at the launch by a number of Labour’s big hitters – including deputy leader Lucy Powell and Angela Rayner.Speaking to 200 party activists – including Corrie’s Fizz, Jennie McAlpine – Burnham said: “We are here to celebrate the foundations we have laid together. One great team pulling together in one direction has brought in a new politics to Greater Manchester.”Calling for voters to back “incredible” Bev he said: “The best decade is ahead of us.”Andy Burnham, Lucy Powell and Angela Rayner join leader of Manchester City Council, Bev Craig at campaign launch(Image: Getty Images)Speaking to the Mirror, Bev said she has repeatedly been told she has “big shoes to fill” but she “loves the challenge”. She said: “When I took over from Sir Richard Leese, who’d run Manchester City Council for 25 years, I heard that every single day. But very soon, I learned that people judge the person in front of them, for what they’re going to do for them, and what they’ve done.“I work really closely with Andy. We’re good friends. We worked really hard together. I’m excited, working on what’s been good and carrying that forward, but also, over time, doing it my own way, too.”Bev said she wanted to build on the success of Burnham’s near decade as Manchester mayor – including the expansion for the region’s Bee bus network. Her first big policy announcement – should she win – would be to introduce free bus travel for 11 to 18-year-olds across Greater Manchester.“We have a bus network that’s starting to go where people actually want to be able to travel. And I’ll build on that, we’ll do more routes, we’ll do night buses, and, obviously it will extend to free travel to all 11 to 18-year-olds.”She also said the region’s economy was looking healthy: “I think we’ve also started to build something around what you see with our economy. This has been decades in the making.“But Greater Manchester is in a position where we are genuinely able to talk about good growth. Redistributed growth, able to reach all of our communities. That is one area that I want to build on.”She said she didn’t want anyone in Greater Manchester to feel like they had been left behind.Andy Burnham with Labour’s candidate Bev Craig(Image: Peter Byrne/PA Wire)“I’m not going to sit here and say everything’s great and the work in Manchester is finished. We were only just beginning. And that’s the important question of this election. We’ve laid the right foundations. Now is the real opportunity to be able to connect all of our communities into those opportunities.“For generations, people in this place have been left behind. They’ve not felt that they’ve had the money, the power, the control that they need to live a good life. And we’ve started to turn the tide, but that’s why we’re at such an important moment. Because we need to build on it. We need to drive that forward.”Nigel Farage’s Reform party won dozens of seats in this year’s local election – but were soundly beaten by Burnham in the Makerfield by-election. Bev acknowledges they will be the main challengers in the race for mayor. A recent poll put Labour on 33% and Reform on 30%. In the 2024 Manchester mayoral election, Burnham won 63% of the vote.Bev Craig launches her campaign to become Manchester mayor(Image: Getty Images)She said: “Everyone loves politicians to comment on the polls, and I’m sure there’ll be a lot of polls. I’m going to take a very Greater Manchester approach and principles of this campaign, that it will be an optimistic one. It’ll be a positive one. I’m not worried about what other people are saying.“I’m worried about what I say to the people of Greater Manchester, as to what I’m going to do for them. And that’s going to be what the next four-and-a-half weeks are going to focus on.“When people go to the ballot box, do they want to build on the seeds of change that we’ve started to sow, or do we want to risk throwing it all away? I’m going to set out how we are going to build on that and the difference that we can make to make people better off.”Burnham is widely expected to succeed Keir Starmer as Labour leader by July 17, as no other challengers have stepped forward to contest the Labour leadership.Bev said: “I love a fight, because I’ve had to fight for everything that I’ve got in life. I think you have to be honest, don’t you? I think the local elections were difficult for Labour across the country.“I saw it in Manchester, just like I saw it speaking to every other council leader across the country. People said that they wanted to see change faster.“They wanted to feel that things were getting better, and that they wanted the Labour Party to listen and to learn from that. I won’t comment too much on national politics, but you see over the last week, it does seem to me like Labour has listened.”
