{"id":1919,"date":"2026-06-21T20:39:30","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T20:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=1919"},"modified":"2026-06-21T20:39:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T20:39:30","slug":"meet-labours-king-of-the-north-the-56-year-old-representing-greater-manchester-and-challenging-keir-starmer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=1919","title":{"rendered":"Meet Labour\u2019s \u2018King of the North,\u2019 the 56-year-old representing Greater Manchester and challenging Keir Starmer"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The 56-year-old politician presents himself as an amiable northern everyman who prefers T-shirts to a suit and tie and spends spare time playing soccer or spinning 1990s tunes during DJ battles.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=1917\">The union behind California\u2019s billionaire tax is blinking, but Gavin Newsom wants to inflict total defeat<\/a><\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s also an experienced politician whose career has taken him from high-level government jobs to the mayoralty of Greater Manchester, and now to the cusp of the prime minister\u2019s office.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Burnham is expected to challenge\u00a0Prime Minister Keir Starmer\u00a0after\u00a0winning a seat in Parliament\u00a0in a special election he hailed as a \u201cturning point\u201d for U.K. politics.<\/p>\n<h4>His nickname is inspired by \u2018Game of Thrones\u2019<\/h4>\n<p>Burnham was born and raised in a pocket of northwest England between Liverpool and Manchester, the son of a British Telecom engineer and a receptionist. He joined the Labour Party as a teenager, attended Cambridge University and was first elected to Parliament in 2001.<\/p>\n<p>He was a lawmaker for a decade and a half, rising through the ranks under Prime Minister Tony Blair and serving in Prime Minister Gordon Brown\u2019s Cabinet between 2007 and 2010.<\/p>\n<p>He ran twice for the leadership of the Labour Party, in 2010 and 2015, and lost badly each time, before quitting Westminster to run for Manchester mayor.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>His tenure has seen him nicknamed the King of the North, a \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d-inspired nod both to his championing of his home region and his barely disguised political ambition.<\/p>\n<p>He gained the moniker during the COVID-19 pandemic, when he\u00a0harangued Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson\u00a0over what he called a \u201cLondon-centric\u201d approach to the crisis.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Burnham has led the Greater Manchester region since 2017, overseeing rapid regeneration for the city where the Industrial Revolution was forged. The city center has boomed, with skyscrapers blooming on vacant post-industrial sites. Many residents praise him for championing the city. He took a piecemeal public transport system under public control, branded it the Bee Network and improved its services.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>He has also won praise for supporting the campaign for justice for victims of the Hillsborough disaster, when 97 Liverpool soccer fans were killed in a crush at a game in Sheffield in 1989. Years of advocacy led by victims\u2019 families exposed mistakes and wrongdoing by police \u2013 who initially spread a false narrative blaming drunken fans \u2013 and extracted\u00a0an apology\u00a0from the government.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h4>He pledges to end trickle-down economics<\/h4>\n<p>Burnham is perceived to be to the political left of Starmer \u2013 an asset with Labour members \u2013 and is acknowledged as one of the party\u2019s best communicators. The rather stiff public speaker of his earlier leadership bids has been replaced by a relaxed figure in jeans and open-necked shirts.<\/p>\n<p>His three mayoral election victories and decisive win in Thursday\u2019s election in Makerfield, where he trounced the candidate of the anti-immigration party\u00a0Reform UK, have cemented his status as a winner. Many in the party hope he can reverse Labour\u2019s precipitous decline in popularity since Starmer won\u00a0an election landslide\u00a0two years ago.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=1915\">Your \u2018proteinmaxxing\u2019 is creating a whey shortage that\u2019s ratcheting up prices and leaving snack companies to eat costs or make recipes worse<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Makerfield voter Ellen Picton, 66, said she was \u201cabsolutely thrilled\u201d by Burnham\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI believe that he\u2019s a man for the common people,\u201d she said. \u201cAndy is like one of us, and he understands what we are going through.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Burnham is pledging to repeat on a national scale his signature brand of \u201cManchesterism\u201d \u2013 a politics that, he likes to say, puts people and place before party and centers on regions ignored by governments in London.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat we\u2019ve built in Greater Manchester needs to go national,\u201d Burnham said during the campaign. \u201cI know what it is to turn places around.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But it remains to be seen whether he can have national appeal, said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCalling him King of the North in some ways, I think, raises the question of whether he can also be King of the South, King of the East and King of the West,\u2033 Bale said. \u201cHowever, he does seem to have the kind of X factor that encourages people to think of him as not an ordinary politician, somebody who can communicate with normal people, someone who can speak human.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>In a postelection speech to supporters, Burnham sketched out his priorities: better vocational education and jobs for young people, lower energy bills and rail fares and \u201can end to trickle down economics, which didn\u2019t trickle down very much at all to places like this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Critics say Burnham\u2019s politics are vague and fail to grapple with tough issues, such as where the money will come from to pay for his pledges. And they note that running a country of 70 million is a lot different from overseeing a city region of 3 million.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Nonetheless Burnham now has momentum that could propel him into 10 Downing Street.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAndy Burnham is probably one of the most popular politicians in the country,\u201d Bale said. \u201cAlthough, to be honest, that is not saying much.\u201d<\/p>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>Associated Press journalist Kwiyeon Ha in Ashton-in-Makerfield, England, contributed to this story.<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=1913\">Rural America\u2019s farms are already being crushed by an economic crisis. They now face the risk of a \u2018mini-Dust Bowl\u2019 as a rare Super El Ni\u00f1o looms<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Andy Burnham is expected to challenge\u00a0the Prime Minister\u00a0after\u00a0winning a seat in Parliament\u00a0in a special election he hailed as a \u201cturning point.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1918,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[317],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-united-kingdom"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Meet Labour\u2019s \u2018King of the North,\u2019 the 56-year-old representing Greater Manchester and challenging Keir Starmer - Cross Country Moving Team<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=1919\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Meet Labour\u2019s \u2018King of the North,\u2019 the 56-year-old representing Greater Manchester and challenging Keir Starmer - 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