RUSHES: Andy Burnham delivers speech outlining devolution plans

Andy Burnham delivers speech outlining devolution plans; Part 4 of 16ENGLAND: Manchester: The People's Museum:INTAndy Burnham MP (Makerfield) speech SOT.- "It’s because these galleries tell the story of our country better than anywhere else. How through time it has not been run in the interests of the many. And how ordinary people have fought to change that status quo and make it fairer.Today we must take inspiration from that history and get ready to repeat it. The time has come to build the broadest possible coalition of people to lift Britain back up to where we all want it to be.What hope can we have that it will be different this time. This is the question I would be asking as a voter right now. It’s the one I want to answer as clearly as I can today.And in doing so, give the new direction the country is looking for. After ten years of political turbulence since Brexit. And twenty years of falling living standards since the 2008 financial crash.Westminster hasn’t been working for people and it hasn’t been working for a very long time. In fact, it is broken. And, as a result, the country isn’t where it should be. It is stuck in a rut.And, clearly, we can’t go on like this. My generation of politicians - including me - must take responsibility. We haven’t been good enough. But, instead of being honest about that, the parties have continued with politics-as-usual.Finger-pointing. Point-scoring. Now that might matter less in a world where people’s lives are getting better. But when they are not, it is dangerous and destructive of what remains of public trust in politics.We cannot go through another decade like the one we have just had. We need a new determination to raise living standards of every person in this land. And we must accept that to do that, to fix the economy and the country, we need to change politics and we need to do it now.