Andy Burnham: The ‘King of the North’ who could be the next prime minister

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham – the so called “King of the North” – could be on the cusp of launching a leadership challenge against Sir Keir Starmer.

Mr Burnham is seen as one of the main challengers to take over from Sir Keir Starmer if he can stage a return to Westminster via a win in the Makerfield by-election on Thursday.

If he succeeds, this would not be Mr Burnham’s first attempt at the party’s top job; the former New Labour minister previously contested the leadership twice, losing out to Ed Miliband and later Jeremy Corbyn.

Mr Burnham has made it clear he will challenge the prime minister if he manages to woo the voters in Makerfield, but Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to stay on even if a leadership contest is triggered.

But who is Mr Burnham, and how did he come to be within a whisker of challenging the prime minister?

Mr Burnham is the state-educated son of a BT engineer and receptionist. He joined the Labour Party aged 15 and subsequently attended Cambridge University, rising up the political ranks to become one of the most senior and successful elected Labour politicians outside Parliament.

A former special adviser to Mr Blair’s culture secretary Chris Smith, Mr Burnham was one of New Labour’s rising stars.

Shortly after his election in 2001, he was made a parliamentary aide to the then-home secretary David Blunkett, a sign he was being groomed for bigger things.

Ministerial jobs followed, first as a junior minister in the Home Office, and then in the Department of Health, before Mr Brown’s move into Number 10 brought him into the cabinet as chief secretary to the Treasury.

But it was as culture secretary that he took on an issue that has become a cornerstone of his career – the fight for justice for the victims of the Hillsborough disaster.

Everton fan Mr Burnham was watching his team play Norwich when he learned of the unfolding crush at Hillsborough in 1989 that would eventually kill 97 Liverpool fans.

Twenty years later, hecklers interrupted his speech at an anniversary event at Anfield, demanding justice for the victims.

It prompted him to raise Hillsborough in cabinet, leading to the creation of the Hillsborough Independent Panel (HIP) – three months later the Home Office announced the full disclosure of all information to be looked at by the panel.

The HIP’s 2012 report was critical of blame put on to fans and prompted then-prime minister David Cameron to offer in the Commons a “profound apology” for the “double injustice”.

Labour was defeated in the 2010 general election and, after Mr Brown’s resignation, Mr Burnham made his first bid for the leadership – losing to Mr Miliband.

In 2015 he was again beaten in a leadership contest – this time by Mr Corbyn, who later promoted him to shadow home secretary.

During that tenure he gave a speech to the House of Commons condemning South Yorkshire Police over Hillsborough, which received a rare round of applause.

Serving in Mr Corbyn’s shadow cabinet led to an often-heard criticism within Labour ranks – that Mr Burnham, having supported both Mr Corbyn and New Labour, is a weather vane who goes with the flow to ensure his own electoral success.

Despite serving as MP for Leigh from 2001 and holding ministerial roles under both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, Mr Burnham has frequently found himself at odds with the Westminster establishment.

Mr Burnham stood down as an MP in 2017 with a call for “real change” in national politics to rebalance power towards the regions, saying UK politics was in a “crisis” and the Westminster system was “a major part of the problem”.

He later took more than 60 per cent of the vote to become the first metro mayor of Greater Manchester.

During his first working week in office he outlined plans to end rough sleeping in the region by 2020 and announced he would donate 15 per cent of his £110,000 salary – on a monthly basis – to kick-start a homelessness fund which will support frontline projects.

The 2020 target was not met but he has continued to work on reducing homelessness in the region.

His prominent dispute with then-prime minister Boris Johnson over Covid-19 pandemic funding famously earned him the moniker “King of the North”.

Mr Burnham won a second term in 2021 with a higher share of the vote, on an increased turnout, compared with the first election.

It was a rare victory in Labour’s “red wall” in the north that was crumbling rapidly at the time. His election campaign materials relied heavily on his own successful brand, not the Labour Party red rose or the party leader.

His publicly-run transport system was set up in Greater Manchester in 2023, bringing local bus services – the Bee Network – back under public ownership, with more routes and lower fares.

It appeared to contribute to another landslide election victory when he won a third term in 2024 with 63.4 per cent of the vote.

The 56-year-old has also earned respect through his handling of two terror attacks during his mayoralty. Manchester Arena was targeted in a suicide bombing just weeks after he started in 2017, and Heaton Park synagogue was attacked in October 2025.

In January, he positioned himself for a potential return to Parliament by applying to the NEC, saying: “I have learnt in my nine years as mayor that Manchester won’t be able to be everything it should be without similar changes at a national level.

“This is why I feel the need to go back.”

He has also criticised Labour under Sir Keir Starmer, saying the party’s loss to the Greens in Gorton and Denton revealed “the full depth of the chasm between people and Westminster politics”.

But it remains to be seen whether Mr Burnham could parlay his popularity in the north into real support in Westminster and, indeed, across the country.