For a while, any talk of Sir Keir Starmer stepping down as Prime Minister was tempered by one issue – there was no obvious candidate to succeed him.
At around 3.15am last Friday, that all changed. Andy Burnham, by many accounts the most popular politician in the country, won the Makerfield by-election and secured a seat in Parliament.
And the former Mayor of Greater Manchester didn’t just win it. He crushed the Reform candidate by more than 9,000 votes, thus demonstrating to Labour Party colleagues that he can take on Nigel Farage and win.
His victory was so resounding, Starmer reversed his previous commitment to stand in any leadership contest. This morning, he resigned.
Burnham is all but certain to replace him at No 10, possibly within a few weeks. His biggest would-be rival, former Health Secretary Wes Streeting, instead announced he was lending support after today’s speech.
The new Makerfield MP has two failed leadership bids in his past – will it be third time lucky?
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Here, we explain all you need to know about the so-called King of the North, and his potential return to Westminster.
Burnham’s background
Burnham was born in Aintree, Lancashire, the son of a telephone engineer and a receptionist.
When his dad got a new job in Manchester soon after he was born, the family moved to the town of Culcheth north-east of Warrington.
This is where he grew up – less than 20 minutes’ drive from the constituency of Makerfield, which he now represents in Parliament.
He was educated at a Catholic school before studying English at the University of Cambridge.
The former altar boy has previously described himself as ‘Catholic by upbringing’ and the Church has had a strong influence on his politics, though he also says he is ‘not particularly religious’.
A whistle stop tour of Burnham’s political career
After joining the Labour Party when he was just 15, Burnham has had many political roles across his lengthy career.
He began as a researcher, then joined the Transport and General workers Union. Following the 1997 election, he became a parliamentary officer for the NHS Confederation, before becoming an administrator.
Burnham was then made a special adviser to the Culture Secretary Chris Smith, until he was elected as an MP in 2001.
He sat as an MP for Leigh in Greater Manchester from 2001 to 2017. In 2005 he was promoted to the Government, serving as a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Home Office.
In Gordon Brown’s cabinet of 2007, he was appointed Chief Secretary of the Treasury. In a cabinet reshuffle in 2008, he was promoted to Culture Secretary.
He was promoted again in 2009, this time to Health Secretary.
After serving in the opposition, Burnham announced he would be running to become the first Mayor of Greater Manchester in 2016.
That meant he had to resign as Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow home secretary, and he was elected to the position in 2017.
Burnham has described his experience of Westminster as a ‘journey’ that led him back home to Manchester.
What happened in his previous leadership bids?
It’s fair to say Burnham can be much more confident of winning the upcoming leadership contest, compared to the two before.
He first tried to become leader of the Labour Party in 2010, when Gordon Brown resigned after losing that year’s general election.
Coming off the back of a year as Health Secretary, Burnham called for decisive action on immigration and welfare – but lost in the second round of voting, beating only Diane Abbott.
It was Ed Miliband who went on to win, and now he is among the top contenders to become Burnham’s Chancellor.
When the next opportunity came round in 2015, Burnham went into the contest as the favourite with more MP nominations than any other candidate.
However, he made a few notable gaffes during the race: saying the ‘[Labour] Party always comes first’ during a Newsnight debate; saying Labour should get a woman leader ‘when the time is right’; and declining to reveal his favourite biscuit, saying he prefers ‘beer and chips and gravy’.
In the end, he came a very distant second to Jeremy Corbyn.
How did he do as Greater Manchester Mayor?
Burnham remains the Mayor for Greater Manchester. He has tackled issues such as homelessness, public transport and investigated child exploitation in Manchester and Rochdale.
His profile was boosted by clashes with the Conservative government over funding for the Greater Manchester area during the Covid pandemic.
In February 2020, then-North of Tyne Mayor Jamie Driscoll jokingly dubbed him ‘King of the North’ – a Game of Thrones-inspired nickname that has stuck.
However, he has also been criticised for spending tens of millions of pounds on a Clean Air Zone scheme which was ultimately scrapped.
He lives in Warrington with his Dutch wife, Marie-France van Heel, his son and two daughters. Burnham and his wife have been together since university.
What would Burnham be like as Prime Minister?
Burnham likes to describe his approach to governing as ‘Manchesterism’ – though it has not always been clear how this term is defined.
In the interview with The Telegraph, the then-Mayor set out a general manifesto of policies that he said would ‘turn the country around’, which included tax cuts for lower earners and greater taxes for the highest-paid.
He proposed borrowing £40bn to build council houses and higher council tax on expensive homes in London and the South-East.
Burnham also told the Telegraph the current government’s education vision ‘hasn’t really been clear’ and called for a greater focus on technical education.
In an interview with The New Statesman, he advocated for ‘public control’. Though he acknowledges it will be expensive, he wants to see housing, water, energy and the railways returned to public ownership.
In Manchester, he brought buses back under control and capped a single bus fare at £2 in the process, even as Starmer’s government raised the nationwide cap to £3.
Due to his long role as a regional mayor – and previously serving in government only in domestic briefs – there are question marks over his potential foreign policy.
Asked by the Guardian if he would describe Israel’s actions in Gaza as a genocide, he said: ‘I can’t judge things of that enormity from where I am as mayor of Greater Manchester.
‘But I do have concerns about the disproportionate nature of what has happened in terms of the destruction, and there has to be a full process of investigation and accountability.’
In the same interview, he praised Keir Starmer’s approach to dealing with Donald Trump, saying: ‘Obviously, the relationship is important to the UK, but not to the point where we just go along with anything they say.’
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