Veteran Westminster swamp creature turned ‘King of the North’ political chameleon Andy Burnham has been given the keys to Number 10 Downing Street, officially taking over the office of Prime Minister on Monday after Sir Keir Starmer was forced to resign just over two years after taking power. The London political churn has spat out another one. Sir Keir Starmer formally resigned as Prime Minister to make way for former Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, who became the seventh prime minister in a decade, and fifth to take power in less than four years. While Burnham presents as a more personable figure than his predecessor, it remains to be seen how far northern charm will take him and if he can deliver on the key priorities of the British public.
Starmer attempted to hold his head high on Monday morning as he left Downing Street — as opposed to the tearful resignation announcement he delivered last month — claiming that he left the country in a “stronger and fairer” position than it was when he came into office. This was clearly not the opinion of the British public, who delivered Starmer’s Labour Party an electoral drubbing in the local ‘mid-term’ elections in May in favour of Brexit boss Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party. The defeat came in the wake of his government failing to return the British economy to growth while imposing the highest tax burden on the nation since the Second World War and having failed to protect the country’s borders, with over 70,000 illegals crossing the English Channel under his watch, the most of any modern prime minister.
