Three leadership bids and a five-point poll boost for Labour: Burnham by numbers as he enters No10

See more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred Source Published: 11:49 EDT, 20 July 2026 | Updated: 12:02 EDT, 20 July 2026 Prime Minister Andy Burnham promised to win over voters 'fed up with politics' and show the world that the UK can once again be a source of stability.Mr Burnham used his maiden speech as Prime Minister in Downing Street to promise to take power out of Westminster and give the public greater control over 'life's essentials'.Speaking without the lectern used by his predecessors, Mr Burnham said he would set out a 10-year plan later this year, and, starting on Tuesday, measures to address the cost-of-living squeeze and give people 'breathing space now'.His first instruction as Prime Minister would be to 'end rough sleeping in our country,' he said, after a visit to a homeless charity in London hours earlier. It echoes a promise he made as Greater Manchester mayor and delivered with mixed results.It marks the end of a remarkable return to frontline politics for a man who was mayor of Greater Manchester just over a month ago. A return that started with the Makerfield by-election has ended with him walking into No10 as Keir Starmer's successor - charged with keeping Labour in power at the next election. Labour has trailed Reform UK in the opinion polls for nearly 18 months but the size of Reform's lead has shrunk in recent weeks, with Nigel Farage's party currently around five points ahead, down from 10 at the start of this year.Not since early 2025 has Labour consistently polled in front of all its rivals. Mr Burnham, who was met with cheers by supporters in Downing Street, said: 'I am acutely conscious that I am the sixth person in the last 10 years to walk up this street, the seventh prime minister since 2016, making this a moment for reflection and new resolution.'It requires my generation of politicians to raise our game and rise to the new challenge.'Britain needs to show the world that we can regain our stability once again.'The Labour leader pledged to 'make this moment a circuit breaker for Britain' – the biggest transformation in the last 40 years, with 'a new political model and a new economic model'.He said: 'We will change politics, to make it more collaborative, more about problem solving than point-scoring, and will take power out of here and carry it into every postcode in the land, so that they can do more, and in doing more, build a new economy where we put life's essentials back under stronger public control to make them affordable to you again, reindustrialising Britain using public procurement to back British industry.'