London [UK], July 20 (ANI): Andy Burnham became the United Kingdom’s 59th prime minister on Monday after Keir Starmer tendered his resignation to King Charles III at Buckingham Palace. In his first address, Burnham said Britain “needs to show the world that we can regain our stability once again,” becoming the UK’s seventh prime minister in a decade.
Burnham formally accepted the King’s invitation to form a government in the ceremony traditionally known as “kissing hands.”
Buckingham Palace announced on X that former Prime Minister Keir Starmer had resigned before Burnham’s appointment.
The 56-year-old prime minister arrived at 10 Downing Street with his wife, Marie-France van Heel, and delivered his first remarks to a public he said had grown weary of political instability.
“Britain needs to show the world that we can regain our stability once again, and that is our challenge: to make politics work, to make it work better. I know people at home are fed up with politics,” he said.
In his address, Burnham promised to act as a “circuit breaker for Britain,” pledging to deliver the country’s biggest changes in the past 40 years.
“I am acutely conscious that I am the sixth person in the last ten years to walk up this street — the seventh prime minister since 2016 — making this a moment for reflection and new resolution,” Burnham said. “It requires my generation of politicians to raise our game and rise to the new challenge.”
Acknowledging widespread public frustration, Burnham told voters, “I know people at home are fed up with politics. I hear you, and I want to be honest with you — we have not been good enough and we need to be better.”
The centerpiece of Burnham’s speech was a call to move away from the economic and political model that has shaped Britain since the 1980s. Drawing on his experience as a metro mayor, he pledged to dismantle what he described as the country’s highly centralized system of governance.
“A new political model and a new economic model. In the 1980s Britain took some wrong turns,” Burnham said. “Political power was centralised, economic power privatised, large parts of the country industrialised and they still haven’t recovered… And that’s why we will change politics, to make it more collaborative, more about problem solving than point scoring.”
Burnham vowed to “take power out of here and carry it into every postcode in the land,” laying the foundation for an economy that places “life’s essentials” under stronger public oversight to help ensure affordability.
He said he would unveil a comprehensive, cross-party 10-year plan for national renewal later this year but promised to begin announcing measures to address the cost-of-living crisis starting Tuesday.
“Later this year I will bring forward a new plan for Britain, a 10-year plan laying out a path from where we are now to where I believe we all want Britain to be, wherever we’re coming from, whatever party we support. But I can do something to give people some breathing space now, some help with the cost of living,” Burnham said, adding that details of the emergency measures and how they would be funded would be released beginning Tuesday.
The prime minister said the planned economic measures would remain fiscally responsible.
“That is the fair and sustainable way to bring the welfare bill down, to meet our fiscal rules, and to honor our commitments on defence to our international partners,” he said.
Looking ahead, Burnham called for a shift toward what he described as a “preventative state,” focused on investing in people rather than paying to address long-term social problems.
Among his immediate priorities, Burnham said he would help more young people enter the workforce by reforming the education system and expanding access to essential support services, particularly mental health care.
“That work starts now,” Burnham concluded. (ANI)
About The Author
