UK borrowing costs spike amid bond market rout - just as Andy Burnham stands by assertion that Britain should be less 'in hock' to bond markets

Updated: 14:03 EDT, 23 September 2026 UK borrowing costs have spiked amid a global bond rout – just as Andy Burnham stood by his notorious assertion that Britain should be less ‘in hock’ to bond markets.Yields on ten-year UK bonds, known as gilts, leapt from 5.24 per cent to 5.35 per cent. Bond yields rise as their prices fall. It was the biggest one-day jump in three weeks.Jitters on bond markets partly reflect nerves over Mr Burnham’s spending plans. Ten-year gilt yields were under 5 per cent just before he became PM and have since touched levels not seen since 2007.But the moves also reflect global factors. The latest sell-off mirrored a surge in US bond yields amid rising oil prices and fears of more US interest rate rises.Higher borrowing costs will create a headache for Chancellor John Healey at next month’s Budget.Mr Burnham had previously spooked bond markets in the run-up to last year’s Labour party conference amid speculation that he would unseat Sir Keir Starmer. Andy Burnham said his previous remarks about bond markets were taken out of contextBack then, his comments about not wanting to be ‘in hock’ to the markets were interpreted as a troubling sign of disregard for the investors who finance Britain – and can bankrupt the country if they turn against it.Then chancellor Rachel Reeves said at the time that while she would also likely to be less in hock to bond markets ‘we rely on those bond markets and those people participating in them to buy our debt’.In a new interview with the New Statesman, however, the PM said his original remark had been taken out of context by Sir Keir’s team.‘I mean, the point about the bond markets, it holds – in that what I was saying was the country has left itself over-exposed,’ he said.Mr Burnham argued that he was not calling for spending restraints to be abandoned, but rather making the case for ‘a much more streamlined, productive state’.He added: ‘They couldn’t understand why I was saying some of the things that I was saying…‘[They] didn’t know what to do with it, but they did what they always do, which is they pulled one line out of it and then framed that one line within their world, rather than the one that I was talking about.’