Andy Burnham

Andrew Murray Burnham (born 7 January 1970) is a British politician serving as the Mayor of Greater Manchester since 2017. A member of the Labour and Co-operative Party, he previously served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Leigh from 2001 until 2017. During his parliamentary career, he held several cabinet positions, lastly as Secretary of State for Health from 2009 to 2010. Burnham is associated with the soft left of the Labour Party and identifies politically as a socialist. Born in Aintree, a suburb of Liverpool, and raised in Culcheth, Cheshire, Burnham attended St Aelred's Catholic High School in Newton-le-Willows and joined the Labour Party at the age of 15. He studied at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. His early career included working as a researcher for Tessa Jowell, as a parliamentary officer for the NHS Confederation and as an administrator with the Football Task Force. From 1998 to 2001, he was a special adviser to Culture Secretary Chris Smith. At the 2001 general election, Burnham was elected to the House of Commons as Member of Parliament (MP) for Leigh in Greater Manchester. In the cabinets of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, Burnham held several government roles, including Parliamentary private secretary; Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department; Minister of State for Health; Chief Secretary to the Treasury; and, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. In 2009, he was promoted again to become Health Secretary. In that role, he responded to the swine flu pandemic, opposed further privatisation of National Health Service services and launched an independent inquiry into the Stafford Hospital scandal. From 2010 until 2017 Burnham held several Shadow Cabinet positions under Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn, including Shadow Secretary of State for Health. Following the 2010 general election, Burnham was a candidate in the 2010 Labour leadership election won by Miliband, coming fourth out of five candidates. Following the 2015 general election, Burnham contested the resulting Labour leadership election, and finished second behind Corbyn. After being selected as Labour's candidate for the new Greater Manchester Mayoralty, Burnham stood down as an MP at the 2017 general election, won the 2017 mayoral election, and was re-elected in 2021 and 2024. As Mayor of Greater Manchester, Burnham has implemented reforms to public transport, taking buses and trams into a locally-controlled, integrated, London-style transport system – the Bee Network. For his role campaigning to secure more furlough funding for Northern communities during the COVID-19 pandemic, he was dubbed "King of the North" by both the media and Northerners – a term which has been used by both proponents and detractors when debating the motivation and long term loyalty to such campaigns. In 2026, Burnham applied to be the Labour Party candidate in the 2026 Gorton and Denton by-election but his candidacy was blocked by the party's National Executive Committee. During the 2026 Labour Party leadership crisis surrounding Keir Starmer, Burnham was selected as the Labour Party candidate in the Makerfield by-election. Burnham has been touted by many commentators as a potential successor to Starmer, whom he supported during the 2020 leadership election.