Andy Burnham: 'King of the North' to become UK PM

Andy Burnham boasts man-of-the people vibes, but behind the casual exterior lies ruthless ambition and political reinvention that has helped propel him to become the UK's next prime minister.

The 56-year-old was appointed leader of the ruling Labour party on Friday at the third time of trying, and will replace Keir Starmer in 10 Downing Street on Monday.

Ditching his signature T-shirt and casual jacket for a suit and tie, the ex-Greater Manchester mayor vowed in his acceptance speech to take "a problem-solving rather than a point-scoring approach" to government.

"Let's have the courage to fix the big things that politics has neglected, like social care, and have the conviction to go out there together and argue for our plans," he said.

From the stage, Burnham danced to Manchester rock band New Order, in a nod to his adopted political home in northwest England.

During a successful nine-year stint as mayor, Burnham transformed himself from former government minister to political outsider.

Seen as representing Labour's "soft left" wing, Burnham was a member of parliament between 2001 and 2017 and held senior cabinet posts under prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

He twice ran unsuccessfully for the Labour leadership -- in 2010 and 2015 -- before leaving Westminster to establish himself as one of Britain's most recognisable regional leaders.

Three successive election victories for the Greater Manchester mayoralty and his staunch defence of the region, earned him the nickname "King of the North".

Slick and slightly whimsical social media videos have added to his popularity.

"I think that he is able to project himself as a normal bloke in a period in politics where a lot of politicians look very odd or very boring or very kind of systematised," Joshi Herrmann, founder of Manchester-based start-up Mill Media, told AFP.

Andrew Murray Burnham was born in 1970 into a working-class family in Aintree, near Liverpool, and grew up in the village of Culcheth.

The loyal Everton football fan enjoyed the "Madchester" party music scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Burnham, who has a Dutch-born wife and three children, joined Labour as a teenager before studying English at the University of Cambridge.

But he said he often struggled with "imposter syndrome" as a student owing to his working-class background.

In 2009, as culture and sport minister under Gordon Brown, he was met by a wave of raw grief and anger at a ceremony in Liverpool on the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough football tragedy.

Manchesterism

It prompted him to push for a fresh inquiry into the deaths of 97 people in the devastating Sheffield stadium crush, after which the police attempted to shift blame for their own failings onto the fans.

After leaving parliament, Burnham leapt to national prominence during the Covid pandemic, clashing publicly as Manchester mayor with prime minister Boris Johnson over lockdown funding for northern England.

The standoff cemented his reputation as an outspoken defender of regional autonomy.

He even has a worker bee tattooed on his arm, the long-standing symbol of Manchester.

There he pushed an agenda centred on public transport, housing and public health.

It was dubbed "Manchesterism", what he called "business-friendly socialism" designed to respond to "the high-inequality, low-growth trap" that he says dominated in the 1980s.

Burnham's move to the left after his years as a more centrist government minister has led critics to claim he is a political chameleon, tapping into the prevailing mood of the times.

In recent weeks he has had to issue several U-turns on previous positions.

Burnham wrangled with Starmer last year, calling on the UK leader to put forward a more leftist vision for Labour, openly opposing him over welfare cuts.

Starmer loyalists accused Burnham of agitating to replace the prime minister and Labour's ruling executive committee blocked Burnham in January from trying to return to parliament.

Following disastrous local and regional election results in May, MP Josh Simons said he was giving up his Makerfield seat so that Burnham could run to replace him, and launch a leadership challenge.

Weakened, Starmer was unable to block his candidacy for a second time and Burnham resoundingly defeated the hard-right Reform UK candidate in the June 18 poll.

Burnham now takes on the task of trying claw back support from Nigel Farage's Reform party, which has led Labour in national opinion polls for about 18 months.

On Friday, Burnham told reporters he would "grasp the nettle" of reforming England's social care system, saying he had personal experience of the system because his father has Alzheimer's.