Who is Andy Burnham? The ex-Manchester mayor set to be the next PM

He's the first Andy in No 10 - but his rise to power has been decades in the makingImage source, ReutersByBecky Morton, Political reporter and Brian Wheeler, Political reporterPublished14 May 2026Updated 10 July 2026Andy Burnham now looks set to be the 59th prime minister of the UK after Labour MPs backed him to take over as their party leader.He will not be the first Andrew to occupy Number 10 - Andrew Bonar Law got there first in 1922.But he will be the first Andy. His political brand is all about being matey and approachable, and the "vote Andy" slogan has brought him a lot of success at the ballot box over the years.He will also be the first self-proclaimed Northerner to be prime minister since Harold Wilson in the 1960s and 70s.PMs since then may have had northern English roots, but none have made it a core part of their appeal in the way that Burnham has.He even has the nickname King of North, earned after he made a defiant, open-air speech in 2020 telling the government Greater Manchester would not accept any more Covid restrictions.But the 56-year-old began his long political career as the archetypal Westminster insider - and although he has only been an MP for less than a month this time, his rise to power has been decades in the making.He first stood to be Labour leader in 2010 and then again in 2015, when he came a distant second to Jeremy Corbyn.He might have gone down as a footnote in political history if he had not taken the gamble, in 2017, to seek election as the first mayor of the Greater Manchester region.Regional mayors were an untested concept at the time but Burnham made the role his own - and used it to build a powerful platform, untainted by the London-centric Westminster politics he professes to despise.To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.This video can not be playedFigure caption, Watch: Who is Andy Burnham?.. in 90 secondsEarly life: Everton fan and indie music loverBorn in Liverpool in 1970, Burn...