PM Burnham vows ‘new path’ for Britain

Britain’s Prime Minister Andy Burnham speaks to the media after chairing a COBR meeting at Downing Street on the UK’s ongoing response to extreme heat, wildfires and drought, in central London on August 12, 2026. (Photo by Kin Cheung / POOL / AFP)

Prime Minister Andy Burnham promised greater public control over essential services Tuesday as he vowed to reverse decades of privatisation during an emotional first speech to his Labour party’s annual gathering as leader.

The 56-year-old former mayor of Manchester — in office for just 10 weeks — choked back tears as he spoke about his late father and detailed his long-term ambitions to establish free social care, reform the UK’s electoral system and controversially adjust pensions.

“I accept people will not agree with every part of it, but I believe it can turn Britain around,” Burnham told a packed audience in Liverpool, who punctuated his hour-long address with numerous standing ovations.

At one point Burnham had to pause for several seconds, swallowing tears before he talked about his father who died earlier this month from Alzheimer’s.

He then launched into an impassioned defence of his plans to introduce free social care in England for people who need help living with illness or disabilities.

“I won’t pretend some of this won’t be difficult. I accept I may pay a political price. But someone has to go through the pain barrier and rip the plaster off. It’s the leadership I promised you when I asked to be your leader,” he said.

Burnham has re-energised the centre-left party since MPs parachuted him into Downing Street in July after ending Keir Starmer’s two-year premiership, which was dominated by numerous domestic policy missteps and infighting after Labour won the 2024 general election.

But he has been under pressure to lay out how he plans to fulfil lofty and costly pledges, including the reindustrialisation of the country, an end to rough sleeping, and the building of thousands of new council houses.

It comes as the UK economy, like many European countries, is weighed down by insipid growth and soaring borrowing costs, while Britons get squeezed by high energy prices exacerbated by wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.

The prime minister must also find billions of pounds for the UK’s defence to meet NATO commitments.

– ‘Not politics-as-usual’ –

During his speech, Burnham told Labour MPs and activists that greater public control over housing, energy and water, coupled with more powers for local leaders, would help spur Britain’s struggling economy.

“I will make a break with the direction of the past 40 years and put Britain on a new path, build a new economy and a new politics,” said Burnham, the UK’s seventh prime minister in a decade.

He said his government would soon introduce a bill to repeal 1979-1990 prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s “ideological ban on public ownership of water companies”.

“Politics-as-usual has taken Britain backwards. More of the same isn’t good enough and isn’t going to get us where we need to be,” he insisted.

Burnham vowed to build a “National Care Service” that would be “free at the point of use” in what he described as a “landmark policy as significant as the creation of the NHS itself” in 1948 — although not until after the next general election, expected in 2029.

– ‘Brexit harm’ –

The premier is currently restricted by Labour’s 2024 election-winning manifesto, under Starmer, which ruled out raising income tax and two other main taxes.

The Health Foundation think-tank estimates that a National Health Service-style social care system could end up costing almost £19 billion ($25 billion) a year.

To pay for his social care plans, Burnham said he would campaign at the next election on changing how pensions rise, a bold move that right-wing parties immediately labelled as an attack on the elderly.

“By potentially scrapping the triple lock, Andy Burnham will abdicate his responsibility to British pensioners,” Nigel Farage, leader of the anti-immigration Reform UK party said in a statement.

Since becoming prime minister on July 20, just weeks after returning to parliament following a nine-year absence, Burnham has sought to offer a more upbeat tone, strengthening his friendly public image.

Labour’s conference slogan is “Hope Again” and delegates are more upbeat than in the past two years when recriminations flew over several policy U-turns by the more-centrist Starmer.

But a new YouGov poll Tuesday showed the party  had slipped back behind rival Reform, which had 25 percent of voting intentions to Labour’s 24 percent.

Burnham announced a new government body to invest in Britain’s electricity grid, in an attempt to bring high energy costs down, and said he would fight the next election on changing the first-past-the-post voting system.

He also said he would put forward “different options” for future ties with the European Union around a planned summit later this year, saying Britain’s departure from the bloc following a contentious vote in 2016 had done “more harm than good”.