Andrew Murray Burnham, commonly known as Andy Burnham, is a British Labour Party politician who has served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party since July 2026.
Born on 7 January 1970 in Aintree, near Liverpool, he grew up in the Cheshire village of Culcheth in a working-class Roman Catholic family.
His father, Roy Burnham, worked as a telephone engineer, and his mother, Eileen, was a GP receptionist.
Burnham joined the Labour Party at the age of 15 and later studied English at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.
He is married to Marie-France van Heel, known as Frankie, a marketing executive, and the couple have three children: Jimmy, Rosie, and Anne-Marie.
Siblings
Andy is the middle of three brothers.
His older brother, Nick, was born in 1968, about two years before him, and his younger brother, John, was born in 1974, four years later.
The three grew up together in Culcheth, where they played football in the garden, attended Roman Catholic schools, and served as altar boys.
Their mother, Eileen, has described them as always close despite regular childhood scrapes in which they “knocked seven bells out of each other.”
Nick, an economics graduate, pursued a career in education.
After teaching and rising through roles at Peter Symonds College in Hampshire and Carmel College in St Helens, he became principal of Cardinal Newman College, a sixth-form college in Preston, in 2012.
John also became a teacher and spent 20 years at Birchwood Community High School in Warrington before leaving in 2020.
By 2022 he was headteacher at a secondary school in Ormskirk, which improved under his leadership from an “inadequate” Ofsted rating to “good.”
Career
After graduating from Cambridge, Burnham worked as a journalist on trade magazines before entering politics as a researcher for Labour MP Tessa Jowell.
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He later served as a parliamentary officer for the NHS Confederation, an administrator for the Football Task Force, and a special adviser to Culture Secretary Chris Smith.
In 2001 he was elected Member of Parliament for Leigh, a seat he held until 2017.
Under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown he held junior ministerial posts before entering the Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury in 2007, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport in 2008, and Secretary of State for Health from 2009 to 2010.
As Culture Secretary he helped establish the Hillsborough Independent Panel; as Health Secretary he responded to the swine flu pandemic and ordered an inquiry into care failings at Stafford Hospital.
After Labour’s 2010 defeat he served in the shadow cabinet in roles including Shadow Education Secretary, Shadow Health Secretary, and Shadow Home Secretary.
He stood unsuccessfully for the Labour leadership in 2010 and 2015.
In 2017 he left Parliament to become the first elected Mayor of Greater Manchester, winning re-election in 2021 and 2024.
During nearly nine years in the role he advanced devolution, brought local bus services under public control through the Bee Network, and raised his national profile.
In June 2026 he returned to Parliament by winning the Makerfield by-election, resigned as mayor, and shortly afterwards became Labour leader unopposed before taking office as Prime Minister on 20 July 2026.
Accolades
As Mayor of Greater Manchester Burnham was widely credited with strong leadership in the aftermath of the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, for which the University of Manchester awarded him its Doubleday Award.
His successful campaigns for bus franchising and greater investment in the North earned him the popular nickname “King of the North,” especially during the COVID-19 pandemic when he pressed central government for additional support for Northern communities.
He has been repeatedly praised for his long-standing advocacy on behalf of the Hillsborough families, culminating in the passage of the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, known as the Hillsborough Law, in 2026.
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