Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s Labour Conference Speech Will Aim to Reset UK Mood

Andy Burnham has been Britain’s prime minister for 71 days, the victor of an intraparty coup that made him the country’s leader with no national campaign, no long list of promises and little explanation of how he would govern. On Tuesday, he will lay out what he wants to do with the job. In a speech at the Labour Party’s annual conference, Mr. Burnham is expected to call for an ambitious 10-year agenda of domestic renewal, including an overhaul of how the country cares for its elderly, new programs to counter youth unemployment, a crackdown on illegal immigration, a shift in power to cities and towns outside London, efforts to reduce the cost of living, and an end to homelessness.

His agenda is deeply focused on rebuilding hope in Britain’s economic future, in response to voters’ declining trust in institutions and frustration with a rapid turnover of prime ministers since the Brexit referendum of 2016. In interviews ahead of the speech at the party’s conference in Liverpool, Mr. Burnham said he was determined to reverse that feeling. “They’ll see on Tuesday, I am here to do something. I am here to end a decade of drifting division,” he told the BBC on Sunday.

“I think that’s where we get hope again because people can say, ‘OK, I understand what he’s doing, why he said that, and I can see that as a path that could take Britain to a better place.’” So far, that message appears to be resonating. Mr. Burnham is one of the most popular politicians in the country, according to surveys, and his Labour Party, which had seen its ratings sink under Keir Starmer, its previous leader, is now leading again in the polls, albeit narrowly.

The mood at the Liverpool conference that started Sunday has been noticeably upbeat. But the hard part has not started yet. Next month, the country’s treasury chief, the chancellor of the Exchequer, will unveil Mr. Burnham’s first national budget, and with it he will begin to explain how the government will pay for all the things it wants to do. Given the country’s sluggish growth and high debt, no one expects that to be pretty. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

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