Andy Burnham's chauffeur-driven car habit

Andy Burnham, the Man Who Would Be PM, certainly knows how to live like a king if his £4,000-a-month chauffeur-driven limousine habit is anything to go by.

The alleged ‘King of the North’, ‘Prince Over the Manchester Ship Canal’ and ‘Old Pretender’ racked up a £12,765 bill with Prestige Chauffeurs Ltd between April and June this year.

In the first quarter of this year, he spent £9,315 on Prestige cars (the fleet includes Volvo V90 Estates and E Class Mercedes). In the last quarter of 2024, the bill was £12,416.

Oddly, the Mayor’s ‘transparency reports’ for June to September have been ‘cleansed’ to reveal only £333,000 of ‘legal liabilities’ out of an apparent total spend of £205 million.

Still, between April and June last year, the Mayor spent £11,940 on Prestige Chauffeurs bringing the total for four (non-consecutive) quarters to £44,711.

In the most recent quarter, this spending is mostly listed as being incurred by the Mayor’s Office. In earlier spreadsheets it’s listed as ‘Officers Travel & Subsistence’ so it’s possible the cars are being used by the Head of Paperclips or some other important functionary.

Otherwise, the Manchester Mayor’s spending is on a depressing par with his counterpart in the West Midlands with tens, or hundreds of thousands, doled out to organisations which seem to have been set up with the sole aim of providing a safe space for taxpayers’ money to be thrown in the vague hope that some of their pious promises may actually amount to something.

For instance, Greater Manchester Combined Authority paid £392,000 to Change Grow Live, a health and social care charity which turned over £307 million in 2023-4 and has £43 million in the bank. It coughed up £148,000 to We Are With You, a drug, alcohol and mental health charity who boast their social media content was viewed more than a million times. And another £195,000 went to Turning Point, who provide ‘free and non-judgmental support’.

Mind you, when I saw they’d paid £46,000 to a company called Squire Patton Boggs I thought it was a joke. It turns out to be a global law firm, not a purveyor of outdoor conveniences to the gentry.