Gary Neville is the perfect mayor for Manchester

This article was first published in LBC.

Reports that Gary Neville could one day seek the Manchester mayoralty initially sound faintly absurd. Then again, so does much of modern British politics.

Neville’s name has apparently surfaced as a potential successor should Andy Burnham eventually depart Greater Manchester to attempt a return to Westminster. With Labour NEC approval apparently secured, and Josh Simons MP having stood aside in Makerfield, that return now appears increasingly inevitable.

At first glance, it feels like politics is continuing its drift to a television soap opera. Surely there must be some difference between running a region of nearly three million people and delivering monologues on Sky Sports?

Yet the more one thinks about it, the more realistic it begins to seem.

In many ways, Neville is precisely the type of character contemporary politics now produces. He is already media-trained, permanently visible with a regional brand and is fluent in the language of public grievance. The old route into politics – local councils, years of internal advancement – matters less than it once did compared to name recognition and public profile.

Metro-mayors have accelerated this trend. The original case for English devolution was administrative: think more local accountability, better transport integration, and low-level regional decision-making closer to the people affected. In practice, many mayoralties have evolved into highly personalised political platforms built around recognisable individuals.

Andy Burnham understood this earlier than most. His move to Manchester a decade ago after failing to become Labour leader was a strategic long-term career move and has clearly paid off thus far. His success has rested on presenting himself less as a Westminster politician operating in Manchester and more as the embodiment of Manchester itself.

The football references and acutely studied informality reinforced the sense that he belonged to the place in a way that establishment politicians do not, despite being one himself, having held cabinet positions under Gordon Brown.

Westminster occasionally mocks this style. Burnham’s “our Andy” politics can appear overly performative, but that mockery often misses the point. Voters increasingly respond to politicians who appear culturally recognisable. In a political environment where trust in national politicians is weak, familiarity has become a lucrative form of political capital.

Neville would inherit much of the same terrain and, in some respects, may be even better suited to it.

Unlike Burnham, Neville never had to survive Westminster first. He already possesses the recognition and anti-establishment instincts, and isn’t a Toffees-supporting Scouser. He also has an unorthodox, articulated political stance.

Neville describes himself as a capitalist, rather than a socialist. He is broadly supportive of lower taxes and profit-making, and is a visibly successful entrepreneur, but argues that wealth should be “fairly” reinvested in employees and local communities.

He has joined the Labour Party and has remained flexible enough to avoid any ideological rigidity, which may make him well-suited to Labour’s current muddled “regulating for growth” approach.

Yet in terms of party politics, he is not especially loyal, having criticised Conservative and Labour figures alike. Boris Johnson, he has suggested, was lying to the British people during the pandemic five o’clock briefings. Elsewhere, he has criticised Labour for pursuing policies such as National Insurance rises, which he says discourage small businesses from hiring.

Whether Neville is a coherent politician is by the by. Metro-mayoral politics has become increasingly about tone, rather than the hard yards of a consistent policy platform or local governance. Are you able to pander to your populace at the right time? The role requires a public figure who can serve as the face of a city-region, its advocate, and, in part, its grievance channel. Neville could fit the mould.

None of this is to say a Neville mayoralty is imminent. He has repeatedly suggested that he is unsure about entering formal politics and ruled out becoming an MP, suggesting he would get “eaten alive”. But hesitation is not the same as impossibility.

Metro-mayors were originally sold as modest constitutional reform, but in practice have become exercises in political branding where personality matters almost as much as competent administration. In that regard, they are both symptom and cause of the same dynamic in wider British politics.

The succession question might therefore be less about policy than profile. Who, in effect, is Manchester, and whether the city’s instinct for familiarity eventually produces “our Gary”.

If Neville was interested, it looks as though it could be an open goal.

Though finishing was never the most routine part of his game. Seven goals in 602 appearances suggest that even the clearest opportunity is not always converted.