The original statement from GMCA after No10 said:
“In October 2021 Andy Burnham, in his role as Mayor of Greater Manchester, had a formal meeting with Khaldoon Al Mubarak at the UK Government’s Global Investment Summit arranged by the Department for International Trade.
In his capacity as Mayor, he was a guest of Manchester City FC at home matches on a small number of occasions, including attending Vincent Kompany’s testimonial match in September 2019, where he met the Chairman informally in the stands. These have been declared in the usual way.
Also during his time as Mayor, representatives of Greater Manchester sporting clubs would routinely join business delegations as part of Mayoral international visits. This included representatives from Manchester United travelling to Austin and Dublin, Lancashire Cricket Club joining a delegation to India, and Manchester City FC staff supporting visits to China and Japan.”
Burnham now claims this wasn’t anything to do with him and simultaneously that it did cover the subsequent meetings dug up by hacks. He now says:
“It was not prepared by me. That was a statement issued by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. So, it wasn’t comprehensive and you know, I’ve asked them to do a more manual trawl of everything because I want everything possible to be out there. There’s no question about that.”
Not going away…
Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock was asked if Burnham will take Britain back into the EU:
“Yes, sure – his commitment is authentic. He really does understand from the grassroots up why restoring what I think of as normality in our continent is vital for every party economically, politically, culturally, in terms of security, and he’s able to articulate it in language that people can understand. So yeah, he is definitely”.