{"id":17216,"date":"2026-08-24T14:31:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T11:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/?p=17216"},"modified":"2026-08-24T14:31:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T11:31:11","slug":"where-is-prime-minister-andy-burnham-running-bahri-yilmaz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/2026\/08\/where-is-prime-minister-andy-burnham-running-bahri-yilmaz\/","title":{"rendered":"Where is Prime Minister Andy Burnham running? – Bahri Y\u0131lmaz"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Andy Burnham, also known as the \u201cKing of the North<\/a>\u201d stepped into Downing Street 10 as the seventh prime minister of the United Kingdom in the last ten years. With the support of 379 of the 403 Labour MPs, the party group rallied behind Burnham, who entered the House of Commons in June. Former Manchester Mayor Burnham took the leadership seat with overwhelming support from Labour MPs, just weeks after returning to Parliament by winning the Makerfield by-election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before moving on to the issues related to the policies of the new prime minister of the United Kingdom, Andy Burnham, it is useful to get to know him briefly. Prime Minister Burnham was born in Liverpool in 1970. He grew up in a quiet suburban village in Cheshire. His father was an engineer at British Telecom, and his mother was a receptionist at a family doctor\u2019s office. His family was a staunch supporter of the Labour Party. Burnham grew up in a Catholic family and served in the local church. Burnham was educated at St. Lewis Catholic Primary School in Newton-le-Willows and at Axelred\u2019s Roman Catholic High School. Burnham also developed an interest in politics at an early age. Burnham, who is a die-hard Everton fan, is remembered as a sports enthusiast in his childhood. After graduating from Catholic school, Andy Burnham studied English Language and Literature at the University of Cambridge. He was a student of Fitzwilliam College<\/a>. An interesting note, Lee Kuan Yew, the famous president of Singapore, also completed his law education at the same college.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After university, Burnham moved to London. From 1991 to 1994, he worked as a journalist for a private company, then became a special adviser to Culture Secretary Chris Smith. In 2001, he was elected MP for Leigh district near Manchester. Burnham held lower-level ministerial positions under Tony Blair.<\/a> During the Gordon Brown period, he entered the cabinet. He served as First Secretary of the Treasury, Minister of Culture and Minister of Health. This rapid rise made him one of the young and bright names of the Labour Party. Burnham left Westminster in 2017 and ran to become Manchester\u2019s first elected metropolitan mayor. He was re-elected with more than 60 per cent of the vote and by a larger margin in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Structural Economic Reforms Waiting for Priority<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the UK still maintains its power and influence around the world in the 21st century, the British Empire, on which the sun once never set, is facing serious structural problems, according to the latest OECD 2026 report. These included declining investments, weak productivity growth, structural downturn in manufacturing, volatile energy prices, increased fiscal policy pressure due to budget deficits, large regional disparities, lack of international competition, and insufficient resources allocated to public access<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the country’s most important problems is the ageing of the country’s population. By 2025, the population aged 65 and over in the UK is expected to exceed 14 million, equivalent to a fifth of the total population and about a third of the working-age population. On the other hand, the industrial sector, which accounts for 17.5% of GDP and employs 18% of the working population<\/a>, is losing its competitive position in world markets, mainly due to low productivity. In contrast, the tertiary sector, which forms the backbone of the UK economy, represents 72.5% of GDP and over 81% of employment, is the services sector. Exports of services reached half a trillion, accounting for about 20% of the UK\u2019s GDP.<\/a> As is well known, the manufacturing sector (or industrial sector) is one of the driving forces of national economies, with a higher added value, a greater contribution to GDP and an increase in employment. In other words, there are two economic sectors that keep the UK economy alive today: The first is the services sector and the second is the financial sector. London’s position as Europe’s largest financial center has not been affected much after Brexit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A number of factors will determine the future of Prime Minister Burnham. These include the government’s implementation of correct and effective economic policy, adaptation to changing global competition conditions, implementation of innovation investments and the use of new technologies in production. In short, the success of the new prime minister will depend on the continuation of structural reforms and, at the same time, the pursuit of decisive macroeconomic and fiscal policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What else is in the Prime Minister’s program?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Andy Burnham was elected prime minister, I watched him talk to journalist Laura Kuenssberg on BBC Panorama. He was asked about his phone call with Trump and his trust in Trump. On this issue, he spoke about the primacy of British national interests in relations with the United States.  The next question was about restrictions on social benefits and changes to the tax system. In his first speech as prime minister, Burnham promised to end homelessness. He announced that an additional  \u00a3340 million has been allocated over three years<\/a> to get homeless people off the streets as soon as possible. Burnham is generally considered to be further to the left of Keir Starmer. He also announced that he wanted to spread the model, which he called “Manchesterism”, throughout the country.<\/a> With this term, he wants more attention and decision-making power from London to be transferred to areas and people that have received less investment in the past. He underlined that they will focus on limiting the intense flow of migrants and asylum seekers coming to the island and that they will continue to help Ukraine. In addition to all these developments, we can group Prime Minister Burnham’s policies into two main groups: Domestic politics and foreign policy.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Domestic politics takes the first place in Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s political priorities. Building on his success in Manchester, he puts devolution- the transfer of powers from the national level to the regional or local level\u2013 at the center of his future policies. Burnham explicitly associates increasing defense spending with the goal of strengthening regional economic areas and promoting reindustrialization through a stronger defense industry<\/a>.  While focusing on infrastructure, housing, transportation and regional economic development, he opposed what he called “trickle-down economics[1]<\/sup><\/a>“. According to the Associated Press, his priorities also include vocational training, youth employment, lower energy bills and cheaper rail travel<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the foreign policy front, Andy Burnham said, “… we must rebuild the UK’s hard power to face a darker world.<\/a>.” On European policy, he is among the opponents of Brexit, like many in the  Labour Party. In addition to Brussels, he advocates closer cooperation with Berlin and Paris in the E3 format<\/a>. Its priorities include combating illegal immigration, economic security and fighting together against external threats such as terrorism or disinformation. As a starting point, defense cooperation can be shown. Burnham’s focus on regional reindustrialization, coupled with his proposal for closer cooperation with the EU, he thinks it could open up new horizons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In summary, British society expects a major structural change from the new prime minister. He is expected to bring his outstanding performance as Mayor of Manchester nationwide. We hope it will be successful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/sup><\/a> The term \u201dtrickle-down economy or trickle-down theory”  is used to criticize the tax and spending policies of governments, which are at the top level and primarily support the country’s wealthy individuals and large corporations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andy Burnham, also known as the \u201cKing of the North\u201d stepped into Downing Street 10 as the seventh prime minister of the United Kingdom in the last ten years. With the support of 379 of the 403 Labour MPs, the party group rallied behind Burnham, who entered the House of Commons in June. Former Manchester […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":275,"featured_media":17165,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[486],"tags":[653,652],"class_list":["post-17216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-international-politics","tag-united-kingdom"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/275"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17216"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17217,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17216\/revisions\/17217"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalpanorama.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}