Britain’s New Prime Minister Burnham Starts with a Bang

Labour’s Andy Burnham entered Downing Street promising a new type of politics. Within days, his government made a rapid series of announcements. They show Britain’s new prime minister’s intent: act swiftly, communicate policies in a way people can understand, and create an immediate contrast with Keir Starmer.

This article explores the rise of Burnham, , the legislation and announcements from Starmer’s final weeks in government, Burnham’s ministerial appointments, and finally, his policy announcements.

The Road to Downing Street

Burnham’s route from mayor of Greater Manchester to prime minister was rapid. After more than eight years as mayor, he returned to Parliament through the Makerfield by-election on 18 June. The contest had been triggered by Labour MP Josh Simons’s resignation, specifically to give Burnham an opportunity to return to Westminster.^[1] Labour retained the seat with 55 per cent of the vote and a sizeable majority over the far-right Reform UK party.^[2]

The result mattered outside Makerfield. It demonstrated that Burnham could still mobilise traditional Labour voters in the kind of post-industrial seat where Reform had been advancing.^[2]

Four days later, Starmer announced his resignation, accepting that he no longer retained sufficient confidence within Labour to lead the party into another general election. Wes Streeting, previously seen as Burnham’s most credible rival ,backed him instead. ^[3]Burnham was elected Labour leader on 17 July with the support of 379 Labour MPs and 23 affiliated organisations. ^[4]This was Burnham’s third attempt to become Labour leader.^[5]

On 20 July, Starmer tendered his resignation to King Charles III. Burnham then accepted the King’s invitation to form a government, following the traditional transfer of power familiar to those following British politics over the past ten years.

Outside Downing Street, he promised the largest political and economic change in 40 years: devolving power, reindustrialising Britain and placing essential services under stronger public control. He also acknowledged the instability surrounding his accession, becoming Britain’s seventh prime minister since 2016.^[6]

Constitutionally, Burnham did not need an immediate election. Labour still holds the large Commons majority won in 2024. Critically, this remains true despite Burnham diverging from the manifesto on which Labour was elected. Politically, however, he lacks a personal national mandate. His early announcements are therefore intended both to provide immediate cost-of-living relief and to establish a governing identity before he eventually faces the electorate.

Starmer’s Parting Gifts

Starmer’s final weeks in office saw a flurry of activity aimed at advancing policies that appeared likely to prove unpopular with the electorate. It is therefore worth asking whether this was intended, at least with regard to the social-media age limit ban, to ensure that the incoming Labour prime minister inherited these decisions without having to take direct political ownership of them.

Children and social media

Starmer’s most striking final proposal was to prevent social-media platforms from offering accounts to children under 16. This ban covered services such as TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Facebook and X, while excluding private messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and Signal. The government also proposed wider restrictions on livestreaming and contact with unknown adults, including on some gaming services, with broad implementation expected in 2027.^[7]

Burnham is unlikely to abandon a policy supported by many concerned parents. Yet an age limit falls short of effective platform regulation.

This policy controls access without making any changes to engagement-maximising algorithms, compulsive design or the commercial incentives behind harmful content. An alternative policy would combine age-appropriate restrictions with rules governing recommender/feed systems, data collection and addictive features.

Some of those latter measures could also be considered for adult users.

National security and cyber resilience

The National Security (State Threats) Bill was introduced in June and gives the home secretary new powers to designate organisations involved in hostile-state activity. Supporting or assisting a designated group can carry severe criminal penalties. Although less politically contentious than Starmer’s platform proposals, it represents a significant expansion of executive power that Burnham’s government will now have to use and defend.^[8]

Such measures have previously been considered draconian and potentially limiting to freedom of speech, though such positions arguably underestimate the threat posed by hostile-state actors.

The Cyber Security and Resilience Bill was not a last-minute initiative, but it completed an important stage during Starmer’s final weeks, extending cyber-security duties to data centres, managed-service providers and suppliers supporting essential services, while strengthening incident reporting and regulatory enforcement. Burnham therefore inherits responsibility for implementing a substantial expansion of cyber regulation across critical infrastructure.^[9]

Homebuying reforms

Starmer’s government also published plans to speed up home purchases through mandatory sharing of sales information, digital property records and the earlier use of binding agreements. These reforms are intended to reduce delays and prevent transactions collapsing after buyers and sellers have already incurred substantial costs. The details will now fall to Burnham’s government.^[10] This is arguably the least controversial action of Starmer’s final weeks.

Starmer also leaves Burnham stronger employment and renters’ rights and the return of passenger rail services to public control. Burnham can build on these reforms while placing them inside a broader argument about affordability, prevention and public power.^[4]

The media Green Paper

Starmer also left behind the Watch This Space Green Paper, whose consequences should not be underestimated if implemented.

It considers requiring social and video platforms to make material from recognised public-service and trusted news organisations more prominent and discoverable. It also examines labels and provenance standards for AI-generated media and common methods for assessing deepfake-detection systems.^[11]

This moves regulation beyond individual illegal posts and towards the systems that decide what information becomes visible. The current arrangement is not neutral, but gives private platforms enormous influence over public information flows.

The danger is that government or established media organisations could manipulate the definition of “trusted” news. Any system therefore requires published criteria, institutional independence and a meaningful appeals process.

Nevertheless, inaction on the matter poses a genuine threat to British democracy. Currently, platforms have effectively limited responsibility and can legally manipulate their algorithms in their own interests.

Burnham Builds a Cabinet

Burnham’s cabinet is neither a Corbynite restoration, nor is it Starmerism under a different leader. It combines Labour’s soft left, Blair and Brown-era veterans, prominent anti-Corbyn figures and several ministers close to Starmer. The change lies less in purging one faction than in shifting the government’s centre of gravity.^[12][13]

John Healey, reassurance at the Treasury

The appointment of John Healey as chancellor came as a surprise, with Mahmood widely tipped for the role beforehand. This was the clearest attempt to reassure markets, with government borrowing costs a serious concern.

Healey served in Gordon Brown’s Treasury, held senior positions under every recent Labour leader and was Starmer’s defence secretary before resigning over military funding. He is regarded as pragmatic rather than ideological, but has also criticised the Treasury as a “dead hand” on active government.^[14]

Healey must reconcile Burnham’s ambitions with fiscal reality: more social housing, better care, regional investment, lower living costs and increased defence expenditure. Interestingly, Healey had resigned as defence minister under Starmer because of his position that defence spending must increase. His appointment suggests that Burnham wants to challenge Treasury orthodoxy without appearing indifferent to borrowing costs.

Haigh, Rayner and Fahnbulleh, shaping Burnham’s domestic policies

Louise Haigh, appointed first secretary of state and Cabinet Office minister, is the organisational centre of the new government. She helped engineer Burnham’s return to Westminster and represents a direct break with Starmer’s Downing Street operation.

Angela Rayner’s return as housing secretary places a trade-union-linked soft-left figure in charge of council housebuilding and renters’ reform. Rayner is herself known for her working-class background, something she leans on.

Miatta Fahnbulleh, formerly head of the New Economics Foundation, becomes energy secretary and will have to combine cheaper bills, decarbonisation, industrial employment and energy security.^[12][13]Whether she continues Ed Miliband’s strict Net Zero targets remains to be seen.

Miliband, Cooper, Streeting and Mahmood, from three wings

Ed Miliband moves from energy to the Foreign Office, giving the soft left a senior international role. Yvette Cooper, a veteran of the Blair and Brown governments, takes health and social care, potentially the central department if Burnham pursues the national care service he has discussed on numerous occasions, including integration with the National Health Service.

Wes Streeting, one of Labour’s most prominent anti-Corbyn politicians and a potential leadership rival, becomes defence secretary. Including him keeps the Labour right invested in the government while moving him away from Burnham’s domestic reform agenda.

Shabana Mahmood remains home secretary, signalling continuity on tighter migration policy and Labour’s communitarian turn. As a member of Blue Labour, a group of Labour members who are socially conservative, her continued role maintains and signals a socially conservative policy bias.^[12][13]

The Big Bang

Burnham’s opening strategy is based on visible measures that can be understood without reading a spending review. As such, they can be seen as more of a communications exercise than a programme of purposeful policy.

Rough sleeping

His first instruction was to accelerate the effort to end long-term rough sleeping. The government announced £340 million for an initial programme providing homes and intensive support, drawing on the Housing First principle successfully used in Greater Manchester.^[15]

Housing First provides stable accommodation before demanding that people solve addiction, mental-health or administrative problems.

It fits Burnham’s preventative-state argument: housing and support may cost less than repeated use of emergency accommodation, hospitals, prisons and policing. This argument is the key antidote to centre-right concerns about spending.

The challenge is scale. Rough sleeping is connected to the wider shortage of homes, council finances, prison release, asylum accommodation and health services. Success must be measured by sustained housing outcomes, not a temporary reduction in visible homelessness.

Electricity bills

Burnham then removed the 5 per cent VAT charge from domestic electricity from 1 October for the remainder of the financial year. The government estimates an annualised saving of about £45 for a typical household and says the measure will be funded by cancelling Starmer’s planned digital-identification scheme.^[16]

This policy is one of the more concerning, suggesting optics above substance. The saving is small and poorly targeted: high-consumption households receive more in cash terms. It also does nothing by itself to reform electricity pricing or promote home insulation.

Its political strength is simplicity. It appears directly on bills and signals that the government will intervene in the price of an essential service. However, the additional cost reduces the money available for areas where it may be more urgently needed.

The £2 bus cap, a sign of a broader transport policy?

The government has restored a £2 cap on most single bus fares outside London from January 2027, supported by £400 million and initially running for a year.^[17]

This is Burnham’s most characteristic policy. His mayoralty was defined partly by bringing Greater Manchester’s bus network under public control. A national cap is particularly valuable to people without cars and to passengers in areas where individual fares are highest.

But cheaper tickets do not create new routes, hire more drivers or increase bus frequency. The deeper test will be whether Burnham can extend the principles of public franchising across England. There have been various rumours about his overall transport strategy, the depth and breadth of which are yet to be fully seen.

Pubs, clubs and music venues

The third cost-of-living announcement was a 20 per cent reduction in business-rate bills for pubs, social clubs and live-music venues from April 2027. Nearly 32,000 premises are expected to benefit, with an average pub saving about £1,100 a year.^[18]

The measure is limited but politically intelligent. These are visible local institutions, allowing Burnham to combine small-business support with high-street and cultural policy. The exclusion of restaurants and hotels is less defensible and underlines the policy’s bias towards optics.

What Comes Next

The first-week measures provide relief, but Burnham’s success will depend on policies that are larger, slower and more expensive.

Housing and rent controls

Burnham has promised the largest council-housebuilding programme since the postwar period, using public land and greater local-authority powers. This is potentially the structural centre of his programme. More social housing could reduce private rents, homelessness and the housing-benefit bill, all while creating a lasting public asset.^[19]

Rent controls remain under consideration rather than confirmed. A temporary freeze could protect existing tenants, but might encourage some landlords to leave the market or raise prices before implementation. A cap linked to inflation or local rents would be more flexible, but harder to enforce.^[20]

The credible approach is to combine temporary protection with rapid social construction and stronger housing standards. Rent regulation without more supply would be fragile; supply without immediate protection would arrive too late for many tenants.

Public control, care and devolution

Burnham has promised stronger public control of essential services, beginning potentially with water and transport. His Manchester record suggests a mixed model rather than blanket nationalisation. In other words, public ownership in some sectors, franchising or tighter regulation in others.

Devolution to regional centres of power has been a constant feature of Burnham’s rhetoric.

He also wants to “grasp the nettle” of social care and has previously supported a national care service funded through reform of inheritance and care charges. Yvette Cooper’s appointment gives the proposal institutional weight, but no funding model has been settled.^[19]

A permanent “No 10 North”, a prime ministerial office in Manchester, is intended to support deeper devolution and connect regional government with industrial, housing and transport policy. It will matter only if real authority and senior officials move north, otherwise it risks becoming branding.^[19]

Other ideas, including a rent freeze, changes to the personal tax allowance and further North Sea development, remain proposals or rumours. Burnham’s informal style creates political energy, but it can also convert an option under discussion into a public expectation before the Treasury has approved it.^[19][20]

Burnham’s Prospects

Burnham begins with a personal advantage, but not yet an electoral breakthrough.

YouGov’s first favourability poll of his premiership found 38 per cent viewing him favourably and 35 per cent unfavourably, with 26 per cent undecided. His initial net rating is stronger than those of Starmer, Johnson, Sunak or Truss, although below Theresa May’s.^[21]

A Deltapoll experiment conducted before he became leader found Labour on 20 per cent under the standard voting-intention question but 26 per cent when respondents were asked to imagine Burnham as leader.^[22]

Reform fell only slightly, from 28 to 27 per cent, suggesting Burnham’s immediate gains came mainly from Greens, smaller parties and undecided voters rather than directly from Reform.^[22]

This is encouraging but should not be overstated. The Deltapoll question was hypothetical, and conventional polling around the transition still showed Labour behind. Burnham’s task is to reconstruct a coalition that fragmented in several directions under Starmer. Voters shifted towards Reform, the Greens, the Liberal Democrats and political disengagement. ^[23]An attempt to regain all of these voters may lead to a contradictory set of policy positions.

Economic intervention may win back left-leaning voters. Tougher migration policy may limit losses to Reform. Competent delivery may reassure moderates. But rent controls could alarm property owners, restrictive migration policy could alienate younger voters, and new North Sea activity could weaken support among environmentalists.

Burnham is also vulnerable to hostile media framing. His spending plans affect powerful interests, and complicated reforms in housing, utilities and care are easier to attack than to explain. He should not rely on complaints about bias. Transparent costings, measurable targets and regular communication are a stronger defence. The full cost of his wider programme remains unclear.

Despite this, the media landscape is one that no prime minister has mastered for more than a decade. It remains to be seen whether that is at all achievable in the way Tony Blair managed it.

Media bias or not, a central constraint is fiscal. Markets welcomed Healey as a relatively safe choice, but borrowing costs remain high and investors want clarity about how Burnham will fund housing, care, defence and regional investment. ^[24]The electricity, bus and pub measures cost hundreds of millions; the structural programme costs billions.

Burnham has started with a bang, but not yet with a revolution. His first policies establish a clear instinct for communication, something Starmer lacked. His premiership will be judged on whether that instinct can be married to a coherent programme of substance, including completed homes, functioning transport, reformed care and sustainable public finances.

The clock is ticking, with a polarised electorate impatient for change.