Andy Burnham has gotten himself in trouble talking about football and its relationship with Manchester. He did not say much, but enough for those who oppose his politics to jump on it.
He loves football, he has seen Everton in trouble for its finances and now similar allegations are made against Manchester City. Inflows of money into the North-West that included the attraction of historical football brands, helped to transform economic development and the business opportunities for the area. The history of any political success is inevitably tied to such economics.
The UK started to experience inflows of money in copious quantities during a different political revolution in the 1980s. Margaret Thatcher, as the prime minister, led the opening-up of the British economy. Capital rules weakened, cheap imports flooded in, and – in some ways – people felt better. The choice and prices of modern material goods had never been better. But all these overseas purchases needed a corresponding inflow. Capital rushed in, purchasing land, houses, financial corporations, and great British brands. Home grown manufacturing collapsed, its international costs and prices were uncompetitive.
Who benefits from the influx of new money depends on where it goes. Overseas car manufacturers create some quality jobs in the British industrial heartlands, but not on the scale of the previous post WWII production lines. Overseas investment brings high tech production with robots and the like and less emphasis on human labour. Banking and finance benefits loan competitiveness and the potential for a government tax take on profits. Investment in property raises the desirability of some neighbourhoods, but often increasing house prices and rents.
Attracting monies from overseas also requires a relaxed approach to the ruling elites and wealthy classes in other countries and cultures, each with their own political priorities and moral approaches. For the last 50 years the supreme value of internationalism was free markets and the belief that trade and finance could open up the world and its resources to all. This was a long game, but while it offered a steady and partly shared material progress, there was less success in finding shared international ideology and values.
Britain and its consumers still get some benefits of cheaper goods coming from abroad, but the scales are changing. Events like Brexit, the covid pandemic, and wars and conflicts, have made attracting the flow of money less easy. And the world is placing other values above financial internationalism. Politics has found it popular to argue nationalism is more important than internationalism and this puts nations more directly in conflict with each other.
If the flow of international trade continues to experience blockages and buffers, politics will have to do better than a return to football tribalism. Politicians must offer a new national economics. This will make the most of regional and local resources and their sustainability and repair, and how best to exploit them for the national population.