Andy Burnham has spent much of his political career arguing that Britain is governed from too far away.

Now he is in the unusual position of being able to do something about it.

Since becoming prime minister in July, Burnham has made what his government calls "rewiring the state" one of its defining ambitions: moving political and financial power away from Westminster and towards England's regions.

It is a striking change of perspective for a man who spent eight years running one of those regions.

Before moving into Downing Street, Burnham was mayor of Greater Manchester. During his time there, the region became one of the most prominent examples of English devolution, with Greater Manchester taking on responsibilities in areas including transport, employment and economic development.

Now Burnham is trying to take that experience national.

The first visible sign came almost immediately after he entered Number 10. His government established No 10 North, a new base in Manchester intended to put regional growth and devolution closer to the centre of government. Burnham described it as part of a "rewired Britain".

The symbolism is difficult to miss.

For generations, the centre of British government has been London. Now the prime minister has deliberately placed part of the machinery of Number 10 in the North.

But the symbolism comes with some very practical consequences.

The government has announced plans for regional mayors to gain greater control over areas including transport, skills, employment support, housing, innovation and local energy. Mayors will also receive a share of income-tax revenue raised in their areas from April 2028, while business-rate sharing is planned to begin from April 2027. Further details of the fiscal settlement are due alongside the autumn Budget.

Regional mayors are also expected to gain the power to introduce an overnight visitor levy, although the Commons Library says this is unlikely to become available until 2028 at the earliest.

In practical terms, significant amounts of money and decision-making could eventually move away from Whitehall.

But Burnham's argument goes beyond simply giving councils another pot of money.

He has long argued that Britain's political and economic system is too heavily concentrated around London and the South East. In his political writing, he has described England as effectively becoming "two countries" — a description of his argument rather than an established division.

Greater Manchester is the example he knows best.

There, the argument for devolution is relatively easy to see. A region with its own transport system, economic priorities and political leadership can make decisions based on local circumstances rather than waiting for a department in Westminster to act.

The question is whether that model can work everywhere.

England's regions are not identical. Some mayoral authorities have years of experience and established institutions. Others are newer, smaller or still developing the capacity to take on major responsibilities.

And that brings Burnham's project to its most difficult question:

Who watches the people who receive the power?

The Institute for Public Policy Research North has warned that England's mayors will need stronger scrutiny as their responsibilities and access to funding increase. Its concern is that one serious failure could damage public confidence in the wider devolution programme. It has called for stronger regional accountability arrangements, including greater oversight of how money is spent.

That matters because devolution does not automatically mean more democratic government.

Power can be closer to people without people necessarily being able to see what is being done with it.

Local journalism is part of that problem. If fewer journalists are covering council meetings and regional government, there are fewer eyes on the decisions being made. A mayor may be closer geographically than a minister in Westminster, but proximity is not the same thing as accountability.

There is also an important distinction between Burnham's political project and every individual policy within it.

The plan to replace some central government grants with a share of locally raised income tax was developed under Rachel Reeves before Burnham became prime minister. Burnham has chosen to continue and expand that direction as part of his wider devolution agenda.

So this is not a story about one man arriving in Downing Street and inventing devolution from scratch.

It is about a politician who has spent years arguing that the British state works differently from the way it should — and who now has the power to test that argument on a national scale.

That makes Burnham's premiership particularly interesting.

The former mayor is effectively asking the country to trust the model he used in Greater Manchester on a much larger scale.

If it works, Britain could become a country in which where you live has a much greater influence on how your government works.

If it does not, the criticism will be immediate: that Westminster gave away power without giving regions the capacity or safeguards needed to use it properly.

Either way, the experiment is already under way.

The bigger question is what Britain wants its government to look like when it is finished.

Should decisions about transport, housing, skills and economic development continue to be made primarily from Westminster? Or should regions have the resources and responsibility to make more of their own choices?

There is no technical answer to that. It is ultimately a question about how Britain should be governed.

Burnham has spent years arguing that England needs a different settlement. Now, from inside Number 10 rather than Manchester's town hall, he has the opportunity to attempt it.

The challenge will be ensuring that devolution does not simply mean moving power from one powerful institution to another.

If the project succeeds, the map of British government could look very different.

But for that to happen, power will need something else alongside it: transparency, scrutiny and a public that can see how decisions are being made.

Giving away power may be the easy part.

Making people trust what happens with it will be considerably harder.