Prime Minister Burnham – Where is the Money?

Mark O'Neill June 21, 2026 13:16

Thursday was a day of triumph for British Labour politician Andy Burnham. He won a by-election in the northwest of England that opens the way for him to become the country’s new Prime Minister.

In the constituency of Makerfield, he received 55 per cent of the votes, against 34.5 per cent for the far right Reform UK. During local elections in May, Reform UK won 26 percent, and Labour only 17 per cent -- it lost 1,498 council seats.

The election means Burnham can enter Parliament and challenge Sir Keir Starmer as leader of the Labour Party. He needs 81 Labour MPs to support him – which he will easily obtain. This will trigger a vote among the 309,000 members of the party to choose their leader.

Born in 1970, Burnham has twice served as a minister in previous Labour governments and twice attempted to become party leader without success, in 2010 and 2015. He finished fourth and second respectively.

This time he is the strong favourite. He has been a successful and popular Mayor of Greater Manchester since 2017. He is a good speaker and has a warm personal manner.

Despite increasing pressure from within his party, Starmer has insisted that he will not resign and wants to complete the five-year mandate he won at the general election in 2024.

His opponents attack him for the slow growth of the economy, the mistaken appointment of Peter Mandelson as the UK ambassador to the US, and the disastrous May local elections.

Earlier this month Defence Secretary John Healey and Armed Forces Minister Al Carns resigned. They accused Starmer and the Treasury of underfunding the armed forces and warned that a proposed Defence Investment Plan “could compromise national security”.

"You have been unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country," Healey said in his resignation letter.

In May, Health Minister Wes Streeting resigned. He said Starmer “lacked a vision.” Streeting, a centre-right politician, is also challenging for the party leadership.

Most people believe that Burnham will become Prime Minister this year, either by forcing Starmer to resign or winning a leadership vote against him.

But, when he sits down in Starmer’s chair, he will face the same sober economic challenges as Starmer and the five Conservative Prime Ministers since 2010.

Since the Brexit vote in 2016, Britain’s economy has not grown fast enough to fund the heavy spending it needs on defence, education, health, welfare, pensions, care for the elderly and other public services.

In 2025, Britain’s GDP grew by an annual 1.4 per cent, compared to 1.0 per cent in 2024 and 0.27 per cent in 2023. Average annual growth since 2016 has been 1.5 per cent.

As of the end of May this year, public sector net debt was provisionally estimated at 95.1 per cent of GDP, 0.4 percentage points more than in May 2025, and remains at levels last seen in the early 1960s, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Healey resigned because the government could not find additional money for defence within existing budget rules and previous promises to other departments.

So far this year tax and other government revenues are up 4.1 per cent, while the cost of benefits including pensions is 7.4 per cent higher and spending on public services has risen 2.9 per cent.

In its 2024 manifesto, the party promised not to increase VAT, income tax, National Insurance and other taxes “on working people”. It also promised to follow three “fiscal rules”, including a current budget in budget or surplus by 2029/2030.

So Burnham will find it very hard to create new revenue and meet pressing demands for money.

On May 6, the British Medical Association, which represents the nation’s doctors, wrote on its website: “The National Health Service has a chronic workforce crisis, driven by years of inadequate workforce planning, lack of accountability for workforce issues and recurrent failure to value and invest in staff. Without action to better train and retain the doctors the NHS needs, staffing levels with continue to fall short of demand, further impacting working conditions, waiting lists and care quality.

“The average number of doctors per 1,000 people across the EU members of the OECD, for which data is available, is currently 3.9. Germany has 4.5. England, by comparison, has just 3.2 and would need an additional 40,000 doctors to reach the OECD EU average,” it said.

There is also a severe shortage of policemen. In April, the Police Federation published a survey of nearly 2,000 emergency response officers in England and Wales.

“It revealed the scale of crisis facing policing, with 91 per cent of officers working in unsafe and understaffed teams. It found that 52 per cent of officers believe response policing is not working well, with just 6 per cent saying it is working ‘very well’.

“Officers described “constant pressure to move onto the next incident”, “being singly crewed”, and “full shifts wiped out by the first job of the day”, painting a picture of response teams stretched not just by volume, but by distance, weak systems and too little support."

These are the scale of the challenges that will face Burnham when he moves into 10 Downing Street.

Mark O'Neill

A Hong Kong-based writer, teacher and speaker.