Martin Ivens

When mischievously invited by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch to offer some public advice to his successor Andy Burnham, Keir Starmer tactfully declined — at least for now. Stanley Baldwin, outgoing British prime minister in 1937, promised that when he left office he wouldn’t “speak to the man on the bridge or spit on the deck,” and kept his word. Baldwin, however, was an exception among his peers; in practice, few former prime ministers can resist semaphoring the new captain.

Bold, big-bang reforms will give the 56-year-old Labour leader the confidence to face the electorate, writes journalist Martin Ivens.

What a difference a change of leader makes. When news broke last week that two prisoners convicted for killing a policeman in the line of duty were to be the beneficiaries of an early prison-release program, the new UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham immediately halted the process, saying nothing was more important than public safety. Keir Starmer would have dithered for days while the newspapers and social media tore into a government “soft on crime.”

Andy Burnham fulminates against forty years of “neoliberalism,” which he claims has laid waste to the UK and especially his native north of England. The prime minister’s solution, outlined before his recent return to Westminster, was explicit; “Put more things under public control: energy, housing, water, transport.” If he means a return to wholesale nationalization and the industrial policy of the 1970s, then “broken Britain” will stay broken. Nobody should want to turn the clock back by half a

When The Sunday Times hired the troublemaking columnist, I was told it would be my fault if things went wrong. You be the judge

In the battle between the bin and Nigel Farage, there was only ever going to be one winner. The leader of the populist Reform UK party romped home as expected in Thursday’s Clacton special election against 33 joke candidates, including his main antagonist and media darling, Count Binface, a self-styled space warrior with a trash can on his head.

Andy Burnham, the UK’s personable new prime minister, has been buoyed by his bounce in the opinion polls. But the day of economic reckoning is fast approaching, with the budget just two short months away.

While Andy Burnham managed to rouse Britons during his run for leadership, he has begun to underplay cost-of-living pressures.

If there’s one thing Andy Burnham’s friends and enemies can agree on, it’s that the UK prime minister is “a nice guy.” Niceness is a bankable political asset. The PM’s allies point to an immediate “Burnham bounce” — his approval ratings are up in every demographic, except right-wing Reform UK voters. What’s more, his upbeat style has paid dividends in a three-point increase in GfK’s consumer confidence index this month, to its highest level since Labour took power two years ago.

Not since the treasures of the boy pharaoh Tutankhamun arrived in London over 50 years ago has there been such excitement over a blockbuster exhibition. The Bayeux Tapestry commemorating Duke William of Normandy’s victory over King Harold’s Anglo-Saxons at Hastings in 1066 will go on show at the British Museum this week. Around 100,000 tickets were snapped up in minutes. The Times of London calls it “the loan of the millennium.”