# Is Andy Burnham Dividing Britain? Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/afternoon-empire-with-ian-collins-1131640/is-andy-burnham-dividing-britain Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/afternoon-empire-with-ian-collins-1131640/is-andy-burnham-dividing-britain.md Podcast: [Afternoon Empire with Ian Collins](https://stenobird.com/podcast/afternoon-empire-with-ian-collins-1131640) Published: 2026-07-22T16:19:11+00:00 Episode link: https://shows.acast.com/georgegallowaytalkshow/episodes/is-andy-burnham-dividing-britain Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/acast/s/georgegallowaytalkshow/e/6a60d776562e3ad8867c896f/media.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/afternoon-empire-with-ian-collins-1131640/episodes/is-andy-burnham-dividing-britain Duration seconds: 1876 ## Resource Is Andy Burnham creating a two-tier Britain? Just days into his premiership, the Prime Minister is facing criticism over a growing North-South divide, a string of expensive spending promises, and mounting questions about how his government will pay the bill. Journalist and author Michael Crick discusses claims that Burnham’s agenda risks deepening regional divisions, why his government is already under pressure over a raft of uncosted pledges, and reports that ministers have now been ordered to find savings despite announcing major new spending commitments. Robert Bates, Research Director at the Centre for Migration, examines the continuing row over asylum accommodation after a village voted on plans to leave the UK over migrant housing proposals, the legal challenge surrounding the use of an army base to house asylum seekers, and his own campaign to force the Government to publish data on serious crimes committed by migrants. Finally, former police officer and Fair Cop founder Harry Miller reacts to the planned early release of PC Andrew Harper’s killers and the backlash after Wes Streeting and Shabana Mahmood apologised for joking about early prisoner releases. Has prison reform gone too far, and is public confidence in the justice system being undermined? Andy Burnham, North-South divide, Labour spending, asylum seekers, immigration, migrant crime, PC Andrew Harper, early prisoner release, criminal justice and British politics. Is Britain becoming more divided under the new government? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/afternoon-empire-with-ian-collins-1131640/episodes/is-andy-burnham-dividing-britain/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/afternoon-empire-with-ian-collins-1131640/is-andy-burnham-dividing-britain.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.